Iarð skal rifna ok upphiminn
by Petit Parapluie
Summary: When Erik Selvig suddenly disappears from his family's life, his daughter Anneka is determined to find him. But meddling in the affairs of gods and men is more dangerous than you might suppose...especially when the gods take an unhealthy interest...
1. The Auspices of Ash and Ice

"_Beware the Jötunn-King's sons; hard of counsel are they, and strong their thirst for vengeance. __ The Rime Giants forget not wrongs quickly, __nor does their cruelty lessen with the passing of man."_

**(Partially effaced inscription, 9th century Tønsberg grave marker)**

**Author's Note:**

**As far as I can tell from my research (Thank you, Wikipedia!) The title translates as a rather neat little couplet from the _Poetic Edda_describing Ragnarök, when "Earth shall be riven, and the upper heavens." It's also been used to describe extreme grief at losing a son - I thought that oddly appropriate, considering... Scandinavian readers out there, feel free to help with translation! I'm using what the bountiful internet provides...**

There is a different kind of cold in the air of Jötunnheim. Few men have experienced that peculiar, biting chill; it has a concentrated malevolence that is rarely found in weather, even in the most inhospitable regions dotted throughout the Nine Realms. The snow-spray of Jötunnheim is stinging, spiteful, and ominously unhurried. What haste does it need, after all? It has an iron-clad sky where sunlight never walks. No – if you were to tread upon the surface of Jötunnheim, there would not even be the faint, reassuring feel of packed frozen earth beneath your feet. Just blue-grey ice and cracked black obsidian stone, as far as the eye can see. The relentless drive of endless winter twists the rock into tortured, angular spires, echoing the grim symmetry of its inhabitants.

It is rumoured that to the south, there are gentler climes; where what passes for the farmer-stock among frost-giants herd their strange flocks on the glacial ice-fields to the west. But that is only a dim tale – and it was not a tale many were likely to encounter, in the dark days of the present. Such things belonged to a time when peace was possible.

There seemed little enough likelihood of that now.

Jötunnheim inspires few sentiments in any case, save for a sense of bleak melancholy.

But _something_- the sharp crackle of frozen snow, trodden underfoot - broke the ominous spell of silence that seemed to lie over Jötunnheim's barren plains.

Two hooded figures, small as blots of ink on a sheet of paper, were resolutely inching forwards, boldly stepping across the cracked glacial paths of the _Jötunn_-folk as though they were their own. At first glance, the elder of the two seemed somewhat infirm, for he leant heavily against the wind, head bowed over the neck of his mount. But the sharp lines of a helmet flickered beneath the folds of his hood, thrown so hastily over his shoulders.

After all, these could be no ordinary travellers, who walked so blithely amongst the wastes of the frost-giants.

His companion braved the malicious ice-flecks on foot, red cloak crackling in the cold wind as though taunting the icy weather. But he seemed somewhat wary. He shifted defensively from foot to foot as he walked, occasionally throwing uneasy glances behind him – at the bleak crumbling cliffs, the endless snow.

He let out a puff of impatient breath.

'I do not like this.' He murmured. Under his breath, but still, a faint audible complaint. 'It is too quiet. We should have encountered them before now, surely?If the _Jötunns_ should surprise us...'

'They will not.'

'But if they _should-'_

'I say again, they will _not._' The rider threw back the hood from his face, revealing a lined, weary face. 'They have lost heavily in this last throw of theirs, my son. More than they reckoned on losing. Besides, we meet them on neutral ground.' He added, patting his horse's neck with an abstract air. 'Sleipneir knows it almost as well as I from the past...' His voice trailed away, as though following an unpleasant line of thought.

It was, perhaps, a better moment to observe the All-Father in a moment of trouble, than when surrounded by the pomp and majesty of his court in Asgard. There he was, in truth, more grave master than man; troubled by the uneasy buzz of discord that rose, jarringly, when he gazed out from the high seat of Hliðskjálf at the shimmering, seething patterns of life far below. Yet there he was still lord.

But_ here..._

Here, for just a moment, the King of Asgard became a sad old man, one faded blue eye staring across the years at old ghosts. Before he dragged his thoughts, painfully, to the task at hand.

'What do _you_ know of Laufey's brood, Thor?' he said, thoughtfully. 'I confess I have lost sight of their number. My dealings with them have been - few...'

This was an old game; one which carried Thor back to boyhood. His father knew as well as any the answer. It was a childhood lesson in memory and mettle. A truly wise man learned readily, and a true king knew all the names and lineage of the Nine Realms well. It was an old adage of his father's - but it sat awkwardly on the frozen air of the Frost-Giants. It recalled old shades, painfully disturbed.

As a boy, Thor had always been somewhat impatient, inclined to wild guesses. He had never been as prompt as L–

The one who had always learned swiftly.

He strove valiantly to answer well now.

'Two,' he said promptly. 'Laufey has two trueborn sons, although he also has three daughters by –'

'We need not concern ourselves with the daughters today. Sadly, we do not hold parley with them.' Odin paused. 'Good. And?'

Thor threw back his shoulders, brow furrowing a little. 'The elder... the eldest son is Byleistr. He is counted a warrior amongst the _Jötunns_, and is renowned for the ferocity of his wars against the mountain-giants – although I wonder _how_ great his reputation can be,' he added, a faint touch of scorn edging his voice, 'When _I_ have never encountered him...'

'You should not despise him for that.' Odin said sharply. 'Don't underestimate the _Jötunn_-Princes, my son. I have _seen_ Byleistr's handiwork on the battlefield. He is patterned much like his sire; ruthless, powerful. If you have yet to meet him, it will not be for his lack of courage. Besides...Byleistr is not the Prince which concerns me.'

Thor repressed the disbelieving snort rising in his gorge at the sound of anxiety in his father's voice. 'The younger?' He turned a wide, blue-eyed gaze of alarm upwards towards Odin's distant face that looked oddly young, despite his blonde warrior's thatch of beard. 'Faith, father, what troubles you of this other?'

'That that is all I know of him.' Odin murmured, in a voice so quiet he could scarcely be heard above the howl of Jötunnheim's venomous north wind. 'That there is little to know, beside his name.'

'Helblindi?' Thor laughed – a little too forcedly. His father's unease was contagious. 'Maybe he's a lackwit and there is nothing to _know,_ father.'

Odin paused a moment to regard his firstborn's face. For one of the Aesir, there was something touchingly _honest_ about Thor. Every emotion skittered plain as daylight across his face. Oh, there was still a hint of that impudent boy's swagger that both amused and exasperated the All-Father by turns, but it was tempered with less confidence than of old. A faint hint of uncertainty – and not a little distress at his father's mood.

Odin took pity on him . It was hardly right to colour Thor's temper with his own, here.

'Perhaps it may be so.' he said, before easing himself (somewhat wincingly, it must be confessed) from the saddle. 'We must be close now. Mark me, and stay close. And _do not speak_,' he added, warningly, 'without my leave. Answer _no_ provocation or insult. We are here to _make peace_, as indeed, I fear...'

He halted, mid-speech, one arm frozen in mid-air.

'Father?' Thor, alarmed, turned savagely, fingers already instinctively clenching about Mjöllnir lest some giant's curse should have set a trap, after all -

Before his eyes followed his father's gaze towards the horizon.

Instead of snow-laden wasteland before them, the face of the Frost-folk's homeland had been rent apart, seemingly from end to end. It was as though a knife had hacked savagely and unevenly through a bolt of white velvet, forcing the land of the Frost-Giants to spill its innards. Thick black smoke belched sullenly from the chasm below, sparks still glimmering through the choking, sulphurous stench.

Thor stood appalled, lost for words. Until something pricked sharply, white-hot, on the back of his exposed neck. He slapped at it with a muffled exclamation. It was a still-glowing flake of ash. Even the snow of Jötunnheim had turned black.

If only that had been the worst. It might have been easier to bear.

Towards the edges of the pit, near where the very rock had melted clean away, _something_ reached out, with desperate, charred fragments of bone instead of fingers, as though imploring the sky to be kind.

More than one... _thing_.

They had died screaming.

The land had not been the only casualty of the Bifrost.

* * *

><p>Thor shuddered, turning away his face. Battle was one thing; he fought on equal terms <em>there<em>. But this grim total of destruction and devastation bewildered and pained him – sharply, as though someone was twisting a knife slowly in his entrails.

'Look,' his father said gratingly, voice hoarse. 'You should look well at it, Thor. This is what we come to..._make_ _amends_ for.' Odin's one remaining eye stared, pupil dilated as though soaking up as much of the destruction as possible.

'I –I...' Thor's voice almost cracked with horror. Some of the charred corpses seemed dreadfully _small_, for frost-giants. 'I cannot believe...to do _this, _unknowingly...'

'This was not done unknowingly.' His father replied heavily. 'As you well know.'

'But...'The thunder god's shoulders sagged. 'This... You can't believe he _meant_ this when he released the Bifrost, Father. No-one – surely _no-one_ could...'

There was an undisguised note of pleading in Thor's voice now.

'What was _meant_ hardly matters. This is what was...what was done.' The All-Father's set face collapsed, for a moment, into sharp grief. 'What _we_ did. And what we must seek to mend with Byleistr, if he now lives to rule - Wait.'

He held up a hand. Somewhere in the distance, behind the black ash-clouds, came the tramp of heavy footfalls on snow. 'We are expected.'

It would have been bearable if the silent huddle of warrior-Jötunns had been the same threatening brood from the first time Thor had entered Jötunnheim; both sides shuffling insults like a pack of cards, spoiling for a fight. There was something simple about that.

This party of Frost-Folk simply watched from behind the smoke, their peculiar burning eyes blank.

This was something no undignified tussle in the snow could settle_._

Odin took a few steps forward, one hand outstretched.

'We come in peace,' he said quietly. Something in the air of his empty palm _shifted,_ and a small spray of slender, spear-like green leaves slid into existence. 'We bring ash to root our words in friendship, as is our custom.'

No-one answered. For one awful moment Thor feared the frost-giants would never answer – that they would simply melt into the smoke, that some deadly, quicksilver cold blade from behind would cut them down...

But after a silence, one of them lumbered forward, stretching out one huge blue hand. The sprig of ash slowly turned silver with hoarfrost.

'We are accepted.' The All-Father spoke with evident relief. 'Byleistr will, at least, hear us. That is something. Little enough, but...'

He stopped, the folds of his cloak tangling as he turned sharply. 'You must _remember_, Thor. No matter what is said – answer _nothing._ No matter what is said here.'

'Oh, the Jötunns will not make me break my promise to you, Father-' Thor said stubbornly.

'_Never mind them!_' Odin broke off. 'Promise me –whatever they – or I - say... Answer _nothing_.'

_Even if __he__ says it?_ Thor puzzled over those last words, turning them over in his mind with a dim sense of foreboding as he followed in his father's tracks. _What could Father possibly say that would make him break his word?  
><em>

* * *

><p>The court of the new Jötunn-King – if you could call it a court - was a circle of felled rock. There was nothing left of the stone citadel that had once been the halls of Laufey –it had vanished into the chasm, like much else.<p>

It was a savage place for a parley - and certainly well-calculated to sting his guests' conscience. The new king had chosen an outcrop of rock overlooking the worst of the damage, displaying his wrongs as though it was some obscure triumph.

He still had pride, this new king. Certainly enough left in his kingship, for there was a raised pile of stones above the rest, built into a crude seat cemented with snaking tendrils of ice. Perhaps they _were_ the soulless creatures of fireside tales after all, Thor thought with a shudder. Had Asgard been levelled to the ground, he would hardly have chosen to sit in its ruins and hold talk with its enemies –

But the throne was empty, the rock circle abandoned. Were they hiding in ambush? Thor wondered. Preparing some trap? Or were they simply too craven to approach -

He stopped, choking back an oath in his throat. What Thor had thought was an empty camp was in fact encircled by a ring of those strange flame-coloured eyes, eyes that had coloured a thousand Asgardian childhood terrors.

One of the remarkable things about the Frost-Folk - and it is that which makes them so terrible - is that they can choose when and where you see them, when on their own ground. They can slide in and out of sight against their rock and snow like ghostly grey-blue chameleons, a shadow with burning eyes. Seen in the mists of Jötunnheim, they looked more like malevolent ghosts than living beings.

The All-Father turned, calmly examining the circle of looming Frost-Folk. 'I have come.' He said simply. 'Under the auspices of ash and ice. Pray, which of you is Byleistr? I would speak with your king in friendship?'

A sullen muttering came from the giants. A few of the taller warriors shifted from foot to foot, as though speculating on the dwarfish stature of their guests - although that subsided when Thor deliberately twitched aside his cloak to show his weapon. Even righteously angered frost-giants weren't hasty enough to begin another quarrel with Mjöllnir.

'I wonder, All-Father, how the Aesir _dare_ to speak of friendship here?' A rough voice called from behind them. 'And, once here, how they _dare_ to stand before my throne with heads unbowed?'

A shadow with surly orange eyes had unfolded from behind the throne, shambling forward with huge ungainly strides.

Byleistr.

At first, Thor (and briefly, his father) had difficulty believing that a second Laufey didn't stand there before them. The same broad build, the same stance...even the same tribal markings crawling about his brow and cheekbones. Byleistr had taken much after his father in looks and height.

But...there had been a subtle intelligence, with Laufey, that was markedly... _lacking_ in Byleistr. That faintly disquieting air of watchfulness had been dispelled in his offspring. Odin surveyed him with growing distaste. That brutal face bore all the marks of a warrior, yes – but there was only brutish cunning in Byleistr's face, heavily tainted with an air of preening self-satisfaction that jarred horribly with the grisly backdrop behind his throne.

Nonetheless...

Odin bowed his head – but only briefly – and it was only a warning glance from the All-Father that directed Thor to bow at all. And that through gritted teeth.

'Truly, perhaps I should thank you, Spear-Shaker,' Byleistr seated himself, chin in one spade-like blue hand. 'For all your petty attempts to destroy Jötunnheim by killing my people, you have worked me more good than evil. I am free of my father, and I inherit a throne. No bad work for a day.'

Thor had never seen his father lost for words before, but the callous way in which Byleistr dispensed with Laufey seemed to rob the All-Father of speech.

'Your –your _father_?' Odin almost stammered. 'But - he was your sire, of your _blood_...'

'He was old.' Byleistr grinned, baring tombstone teeth as he gazed down at Odin. 'I could have wrested the throne from him – in time. Old dogs are crafty, yes, but old kings are _weak._' He sniffed, looking down at Odin's silver beard. 'I should imagine you know something of that, _All-Father_.'

Thor made an angry leap forward – only to check the raging words on his lips with an effort as his father's glance flicked towards him. He _had_ sworn. He choked his ire back, and attempted to look indifferent, dragging his concentration back to the parley.

'I see.' Odin spoke calmly. 'Then let us speak plainly, Byleistr Laufeyson. What was done to your people and your lands was not done by my hand.'

'No? Who else but _you_ wields the Bifrost?' There was a threatening growl in the Frost-King's voice now. 'Who else but you holds the Nine Realms under your thumb with your magics and artifices, with your scavenged treasures? Do not try to hoodwink me, King of Asgard. I know better.'

'It was not I, as you well know,' Odin's voice had dropped to a whisper. 'One of my own house, yes – I...' he sagged, slightly, shoulders hunched beneath his cloak.

Thor stood appalled. 'Father-'

'Be silent, Thor!' Odin raised his head, his voice stronger. 'I would give you the blood-price, Byleistr Laufeyson, as is customary. But the one – the...the son who raised hand against you is – dead.'

Byleistr's eyes narrowed. 'Dead, you say? And what surety do I have that he _is_ dead? If this is a trick...'

He stared hard at their faces. Thor's lips were pressed together in a thin line, eyes blinking over-fast, whilst Odin - Odin's face was blank, but his fingers were trembling slightly as he held his spear.

Byleistr laughed, assured of the truth. 'No trick, then? You act swiftly against your own, All-Father. I congratulate you on your judgement – truly _worthy_ of a king.'

'Loki Odinsson is dead. And beyond all judgement of ours,' Odin continued doggedly, as though that last barb of Byleistr's had missed its mark. 'I come now to ask what you would have instead of your vengeance.'

Byleistr's eyes lit up, the banked fires of avarice glowing bright.

' A different blood-price for my father's death must, of course, be paid.' He said nonchalantly. 'In gold and iron, from the smithies of Svartalfheim, I think. Enough to arm a hundred warriors will content me.'

Thor blinked, surprised. For blood-gold, the price that Byleistr demanded was almost ridiculously low. Granted, Jötunnheim seemed scarce in many things, but...

He was _up_ to something, Thor realized, grimly. No one demanded so low a price for the death of a king. Byleistr wanted something else. Something _more_ than the other demands he could have made.

Odin eyed the new Frost King warily. 'It shall be paid. Willingly. And perhaps a new peace may-'

'Peace? Who speaks of peace yet? We have yet to talk of the blood-price for Jötunnheim _itself_, All-Father.' Byleistr's saffron-coloured eyes narrowed. 'You have yet to answer for _that_.'

The throaty roar of agreement that came from the threatening circle of warriors was a fearful sound. Something akin to a pack of hungry dogs baying for blood. But Odin simply stood his ground silently until the noise died down, tracing idle shapes in the snow with the butt of his spear. 'And what would the son of Laufey ask for in payment?'

'Little more than what is mine by right. The Casket-'

'Was taken from your father as punishment for the war he wrought in the Nine Realms.' The All-Father said coldly. 'Any claim of Jötunnheim to the Casket of Ancient Winters has _long_ since been forfeit-'

'And you would keep us weak so you may destroy us at will, at the whim of your pampered princelings! I warn you, All-Father, Jötunnheim is not weak as you think.' The Frost-King's voice was a brutal growl, ice closing about his fist in wicked-looking spikes as he pounded the arm of his throne. 'We will not stand by-'

Thor shifted warily, expecting perhaps some attack – for Byleistr's temper was wearing thin, and the court of Jötunn-warriors had closed in ominously about their guests. But Byleistr, oddly enough, simply glanced behind his throne and _smiled, _his temper suddenly deceptively smooth.

'Come, what I ask is not _much_, All-Father. Compared to what I could... _demand_. You know this.'

'Meaning?' Odin looked taken aback.

'Meaning that your Bifrost, Greybeard, destroyed many lives. Our population is...depleted. Now, I would be content to simply_ rebuild_ with our Casket of Ancient Winters, if you would give it to me, and nary a thought of vengeance or reprisal would cross my mind,' Byleistr spoke almost airily. 'But since you say you will not give me what is mine, I must ask for something else that was once... _ours_.'

This was more than Thor could bear. His _father_ - more than his father, his sworn king - was being baited by this brutish swine of a frost-giant as 'Greybeard' and 'Spear-Shaker' - and he almost _accepted_ it as his due!

He could not help himself. At this last braggart's jibe he strode forward, blue eyes blazing, beard almost bristling with rage. 'Oh yes? What else have we of _yours, _giant? What else are we keeping from you? '

The Jötunn-King laughed.

'_You_ do not know? The All-Father truly is a man to admire for his candour! Why, Midgard, boy.' He stared directly towards his horrified guests. 'Give us Midgard for our own, and you shall have _peace_.'

* * *

><p>'<em>Midgard? Give Midgard to you?'<em> Thor seemed at first rooted to the spot with shock. Until his voice began to rise into a full-chested roar of anger. 'Ay, after we first give it to the wolves and the crows, and the maggots besides! What creeping spawn of Ymir's stink dares raise its eyes to Midgard? After your attempts to steal from Asgard and murder my father, you _dare_ to demand Earth of him? When has Earth ever been _yours_?'

It was only in the deadly silence that followed this outburst that Thor, panting for breath, caught sight of his father's countenance. The expression there was pure steel.

Thor suddenly felt a twinge of misgiving. No, not _quite_ misgiving -it was a rare moment where anyone could accuse the son of Odin of doubt - but the cold feeling that gripped his vitals made Thor feel desperately afraid for Midgard.

_'Father?_'

'Be silent, Thor.'

'But surely you do not mean to give _in_ to this-'

'_I say be silent!'_ The All-Father rounded fiercely on his son, before turning to Byleistr, hands spread wide in a gesture of goodwill. 'You and I understand each other very well as men, I think.' He said deliberately. 'Forgive my son. He is, as yet, a child in the face of such weighty matters as would accept Midgard as blood-price, then?' He added, mildly.

Byleistr must have sensed that now was the time to press home his advantage, for in his excitement he rose from his throne, pacing like a wolf scenting blood.

'Earth would do well enough. Land for land is but fair…'

'Fair indeed.' Odin's tone was deceptively benign. 'And its _people_...?'

Byleistr bared his teeth again. 'As I said, we have _much_ to rebuild. The mortals would prove..._useful_ to us, I am sure.'

'I ...see.' The All-Father shifted his stance slightly, leaning more heavily upon his spear as though he were an old man in pain. 'Your price is a heavy one, son of Laufey, yet,' he closed his eyes wearily, 'I will pay it gladly if it is the price of peace.'

'_Father, NO!'_

The god of thunder had dug his fingernails so sharply into his own fists that tiny drops of blood marked the snow. This last, terrible concession of his father's was hard to endure - indeed, he had half-raised Mjöllnir, with a hazy intent of smashing Byleistr's demands into an eternal silence -

'You _will_ control your temper, boy!' The butt of Odin's staff struck Thor's clenched fist sharply, striking his weapon down.

Byleistr's shoulders sprang back slightly, a gesture of barely disguised triumph. He had not expected to win so easily. The gaze he flicked back and forth between Thor and his father was one of pure insolence. Dissension? A weakened Asgard making concessions? His nostrils flared, scenting victory.

'Then we are agreed!'

'If,' Odin continued, elbowing his son aside, 'You grant us time enough. I must hold parley with Asgard's council, first. It is no little matter, making the gift of a realm as blood-price.'

Byleistr sniffed. 'The oaths of the Aesir are _weak_...'

'Not here. _That_ I promise you. And you will work no harm against Asgard or its people?' Odin said sharply. 'You will uphold the terms of the peace I wrought with your father?'

'For the present. Until Midgard_ is_ ours.'

Odin bowed his assent. 'It is well. I will take my leave of you and your court, Byleistr Laufeyson, in the hopes of meeting under brighter auspices…'

He darted an expressive glance at Thor, who followed silently in his father's wake as he bowed towards the brooding Jötunn-King upon his throne of ice. Blood still flecked the snow at his feet as he turned.

'Hold a moment, Grey One.' Byleistr's voice was almost lazy. 'I think it well that _this_ boy of yours should understand me better, lest he should fall into the same…error as his broodling.' He raised his voice a little. 'Come forward, my brother! Let the great lords of the Aesir _see_ you plain.'

Something shifted in the shadows, emerging from the blue-grey shadows about the icy canopy of Byleistr's throne to resolve itself into another Jötunn. He was tall, although slighter than the bulky warriors gathered about Byleistr's throne, and built on sparser lines. Unlike the others, who seemed to disdain covering, his shoulders were cloaked in some strange pelt from one of their stinking frost-beasts, but…

But why were his movements so slow? – and oddly _groping,_ as though hardly sure of his footing. Something about that cowled head, moving as though scenting the way like a bloodhound – it was _uncanny_.

Odin made a strangled noise in the back of his throat.

'Come,' he said, one hand laid hastily on his son's arm. 'You have no need to see this, Thor-'

'Why so quick to leave, All-Father? Are the Aesir afraid?'

Byleistr rose from his seat, and in one quick motion, threw back the hood from the Jötunn's face.

And then – Thor _saw_.

Helblindi's name had not sprung from any lack of wit. The glowing amber eyes that should have looked out from his face had been cruelly gouged out – and viciously too, for great scars marked the empty eyesockets, raking from brow to cheekbone. The Jötunn-Prince was 'all-blind' in truth, more a ruin of a frost-giant than a whole one. Although a muscle in one cheek quivered, despite his impassive face. Clearly he knew well this particular brand of humiliation, being displayed as a trophy of his brother's vengeance.

Thor stared in horror, eyes wide. To do that to his own _kin_? He had thought Byleistr's callousness towards his father simply _assumed_ - a warrior's bravado, intended to cow them into submission. The cold proof of it was jolting . It brought ugly, painful thoughts of - other days, other... brothers, to the surface. Thor looked away, deliberately fixing his eyes on the stone hills rather than on the multilated form of the younger Frost Prince.

Had Thor glanced at his father, he might have been surprised.

For Odin did not look away, or let his gaze snag on the horizon. He instead stared, almost hungrily, at the ruined face, as though trying to learn the pattern of the Jötunn-Prince Helblindi by heart, his one faded blue eye unaccountably moist. It must have been the bitter wind, blowing in his face.

Byleistr watched their looks of horror narrowly, with every evidence of grim satisfaction.

'My brother chanced to kill a quarry once that should have been mine, on a hunt we undertook together as boys,' he declared. 'He had sharp eyes then. Which he used - against _me_.' He settled himself in his throne once more. 'I spare no man who crosses my path or cheats me of mine, Asgardians. Think on that when you are safe in your citadel once more.'

He waved a hand. 'You may go.'

* * *

><p>It had been a day of horrors - but the last must have grievously afflicted Thor's imagination, for they were scarce out of sight of Jötunnheim when he shook off his father's hand. As though the mere touch scalded him beyond bearing.<p>

'How - _how_ could you agree to such a bargain as that?' He shook his head, as though trying to clear the grim spectre of Helblindi from his mind.A man who could do that to his own kin for a moment's chagrin was capable of _anything_ – proof of the real danger lying before them. Why, he could have crushed the Frost-King's skull like splintered eggshell when he had so smirkingly asked for _Earth_. As though Earth were some child's toy to be given on demand!

'To such a -a _creature_?'

'And what bargain have I made, that so displeases you?' Odin seemed nothing but a forbidding shadow within his helm. He had not spoken since they had withdrawn from Bylesitr's court. 'You, who break oaths so lightly to your king!'

Thor blanched - but he stood his ground.

'I uphold no oath made to buy my agreement so – so _meanly_, whilst you sell Earth into slavery for the peace of Asgard!'

'Peace!' The All-Father said sharply. He slapped Sleipneir's neck absently 'I have bought us time to barter for a better peace, my son – time we dearly need. I like not this new king of Jötunnheim. He reeks of greedy ambition. He will not make war whilst he thinks he has something to gain from parley.'

'Or he will prove a _brute_, and take it anyway, whilst we hesitate,' Thor said darkly, wrapping his cloak more closely about himself. 'He would wreak horror and desolation on Earth-'

He stopped short.

And... Jane.

Thor recalled with a pang the way her soft brown eyes crinkled up when she smiled, head tilted slightly to one side like a small bright-eyed bird. Jane, of the soft flyaway hair – who looked strikingly lovely when bemused, or thoughtful. Try as he might, Thor found it harder to keep her face before him for long these days. She was a smudged memory, fading away like melted snow.

Strangely, the ruined face of Helblindi floated more substantially before his eyes the more he tried to hold Jane in his mind. There had been something disturbing about that face – something unconnected with the blinded eyes. Perhaps it had been the Jötunn's sparse build, compared to the hulking warriors of his tribe, or that sharp curve of jawline - but he had seemed painfully _familiar, _somehow. As though Thor had caught a brief glimpse of ...

No. Thor tried to shake the moment's disquieting reflection away. _That_ was impossible. But...

It alarmed him, that uneasy ghost of a thought.

Alarmed him enough to harden his resolve, as Sleipneir's many hooves landed upon the shattered remains of the Bifrost. He cast anxious eyes heavenwards, towards the cold reaches where Midgard hung tantalisingly out of reach. The time to act was _now_. They were restricted to the old ways whilst the Bifrost remained in ruins, for few steeds of Asgard could travel between the Nine Realms with ease. Indeed, none could travel without the blessing of the All-Father himself, and for good reason. Meddling in the affairs of other realms was no light matter. But surely - in light of this new danger for both Asgard and Earth, his father could not _refuse_him?

Odin stared for a few moments out at the stars, unblinking, before turning back towards the city – away from his son, who lingered a little longer, looking at the swirl of lights speckling the firmament. 'Come,' he said over his shoulder, urging Sleipneir forward a few paces. 'There is much to do. I must think on how to act in this-'

Thor seized his moment. '_Father_-'

'Thor?'

'I...' Thor threw a desperate glance behind him, towards the tiny pinpoint of light nearest Earth. 'I would – I would ask your permission to leave Asgard, for a time.'

'_Leave_ Asgard?' Odin's brows drew together. 'And go _where_, may I ask?'

Thor stared at the shifting colours trapped in the bridge beneath his feet, but made no answer.

'I see.' Odin's voice hardened. 'You would journey to _Earth_. Now. When Jötunnheim threatens your home with war-'

'It is because Jötunnheim threatens _worse_ to Midgard that I _must _go, Father.'

Odin made an impatient noise in his throat. 'This is idle talk-'

'Not so idle!' Thor stared hard at his father. 'What if you cannot make peace with this new king on any other terms? What if he still demands Earth, or worse yet, simply _takes_ it? Someone should at least _warn_ them of the danger in which they stand-'

'And your mortals would thank you for that?' There was a rising edge in the All-Father's voice. A more critical judge of character than Thor might have perhaps detected a note of jealousy – a suggestion of frustration that his loyal first-born was not listening obediently and solemnly to his fatherly words. And worse, had plans of his own.

'They would scatter in fear and die in misery, and you could do nothing to save them-'

'No!'

'No?'

'I would fight for them.' Thor said determinedly, face set. 'I swore, Father. I gave my word to protect Earth.'

'And all for your mortal's sake?'

The pointed question took Thor almost unawares, and for one brief moment he flushed, pink as a maid on her wedding day. But he stood his ground, nonetheless.

'Not just for her sake. Midgard deserves our protection. But – yes. So Jane is safe.'

'Then save her – by staying _here_.' Odin took a step towards his son, his gaze suddenly openly appealing. 'Save Earth, by all means – but prove your worth by guarding it from harm from afar. It has only been a short time since you returned to us. Would you – would leave us so soon after...'

He faltered, and turned confusedly away for a moment, shoulders heaving.

Not all of the All-Father's frailty before Byleistr had been feigned. But reluctant as he was to reveal his tender point to an enemy, he dropped all pretence before Thor.

'We have already lost a well-beloved son,' he said, chokingly. 'I beg you – do not make us truly childless.'

Odin had not spoken of his brother's death since today. It was still too raw, too painful a wound, for both father and son. But his words made something shift, suddenly in Thor's head - back to that last fateful day. Something hurled, spitefully, between gritted teeth.

'He told me I...I was _not_ his brother,' He said, swiftly, the words tumbling out before he could hold them back. 'Here. On the bridge.'

Odin's shoulders suddenly stiffened beneath his cloak, standing still as stone.

'Foolishness,' he said, in a voice that sounded oddly strangled in his throat. 'What brought that to your mind? He did not know what he said. Pay it no heed.'

'I don't.' Thor still stared as the prismatic colours moving sluggishly in the Bifrost. 'But... father...did you see his _face_? The younger Jötunn, he -' Thor shivered. 'I could have sworn I saw, in his face...he looked like...' He trailed off, face cast down.

'Stay.' Odin said hoarsely. 'Stay with us, here, for now. Please.'

And what refusal could be made to that? None. No man could have refused. Thor felt his father's overwhelming grief too keenly. Had he still been a small boy, he would have in all probability thrown his arms about his father and promised never to leave, ever.

As a man who knew his duty, he nodded assent, not trusting his voice to words, and followed behind his father as they began the long journey back into the heart of the citadel.

But Thor was also a man who, where he loved, loved in grave earnest. And it was not without twinges of _grave_ misgiving that he followed his father back through the golden gates of Asgard. Byleistr was not a creature to make idle threats for nothing. There was a storm coming. Midgard - no, _Jane_ was in grave danger, and knew nothing of it.

* * *

><p>Alas, if only Jötunnheim had been all that threatened Earth! Thor little knew how deep the shadow stood over Midgard. Or how close he had come to grasping a truth that his father still pushed away... <p>


	2. Of Fathers and Children

"_En lyckad berättare har gott minne och hoppas att andra inte har det."_

_ A successful writer has a good memory and hopes that others do not have it._

**Swedish Proverb**

One of the remarkable things about folklore – human folklore in particular - is the _patterns_ it makes.

There are _always _patterns, no matter the tale. Stories don't die. They take on different forms perhaps, become stretched and changed over the years – but no story worth the telling can truly _die_.

This is why most stories – even with heroes, gods and the grand, strutting evils that they eventually overcome – have the obstacle; a speck of grit in the ticking clockwork of the cosmos that can change a good many things, given the chance. Whether it is wanted or no, it happens.

It might have given Thor some small comfort to know that, unknown to men and gods, something similar was occurring on Earth.

The only problem is that sometimes, the speck of grit has no idea what it's about to get itself into.

* * *

><p>Anyone who has been to Tønsberg, Norway ("Vestfold county, oldest town in southern Norway, a charming maritime town teeming with historic interest!", if you <em>really<em> wanted to quote the tourist guide) will admit that no-one sees the best of it in a steady downpour of chilling autumn rain. It's even _worse_ when the streets are flooded with keen-eyed students with clipboards at the ready. Enthusiastic students had been a particularly virulent street pest in Tønsberg over the last week. Centenaries seemed to bring out the worst in history undergraduates.

Anneka sighed as another bus rumbled past in the rain, and tugged disconsolately at the 'Elven Handfasting Dress™' label that was still sticking haphazardly out at the back of her neck. She hadn't had time to cut it out of the damn thing before she left on the minibus. She hadn't even _wanted_ to come, but – but then Professor Jeroldssen had looked so _hopeful_ that people would volunteer, with her posters and desperate, optimistic email messages. And they never _did_. Anneka hadn't had the heart to turn her down.

Well. Here she was, for her pains. Sat in a puddle of mud with grass floating in it, on a folding chair, trying desperately to steal wi-fi from the library across the road.

Life certainly could have been better. And, on the whole, less wet.

But Anneka tried to make the best of things, even when sat in a soggy tent dressed like a cut-price elven princess. She coaxed her battered laptop into sulky life, balanced it precariously on one knee, and listened to the rain.

And the shouting from outside.

'Greetings, dear companions-at-arms! I bid thee welcome to the historic ruins of St Olav's Church - hey, _wait_!'

A gaggle of tourists in anoraks scurried past the tent opening, throwing alarmed looks over their shoulders.

'It's a real taste of culture! Fun for all the family – oh, come _on!_' The plump 'Viking' who was following them – hopefully, like a persistent puppy - waved his plastic axe impatiently. 'We're giving you _history_, here! Aren't you interested? We've got basket-weaving in the Arts and Craft tent...'

A twelve year old snickered, camera-phone flashing derisively in his direction.

The Viking subsided ungraciously, ambling back to his folding-chair whilst muttering under his breath.

'I give up,' he declared, pulling off the "Hilarious Party Viking!" beard. 'Why is Living History Week always in the _rain? _And surrounded by such _arses_-'

'Extra credit.'

'Yeah, _right_!'

'It looks good on your applications, Ton,' Anneka said, frowning slightly at her computer screen. Underneath the false beard, Ton revealed himself to be an earnest, rather chubby boy - swamped in a voluminous black Rammstein t-shirt and a disgruntled scowl. 'Yeah? Don't see _you_ sitting it out here in the rain, do I?' he said plaintively. 'You're supposed to be being a _proper _Viking goodwife, not-'

'Not stealing the library's wi-fi on the sly for the laptop? Yeah, sorry about that,' Anneka said unrepentantly, fingers flying rapidly over the keyboard. S-E-L-V-I-G, A-N-N-E-K-A. Just the password to go. 'But I've _got_ to get this application to the Moesgaard Museum in soon, before the deadline...'

'You should be turning the pig,' Ton said accusingly. 'You _know _Professor Jeroldssen coughed up from the History Society funds to buy that plastic roast pig, and you're just sitting there _not_ using it. The fire's got batteries so it really glows and everything!' He sneezed pathetically into his cheap felt cloak, and stared blankly at the wet canvas banner draped over the entrance. It read, '_Vestfold __Universitetet __presenterer__ "__Levende Historie__Uke"' –_ 'Vestfold University presents Living History Week'.

Anneka rolled her eyes. She liked Ton; it was hard _not_ to like someone who took his 'living history' with such stoic persistence in the face of jeering teenagers and rain. 'Turning a lump of plastic on a spit isn't really my idea of ancient tradition, Ton. Even if it _does_ have batteries.'

'_And_ you're supposed to be helping kids make cardboard helmets in the Arts and Craft tent.' Ton added, absently. 'Forsooth.' He grinned. 'Thou be'st a most recalcitrant wench...'

'Oh, shut up! No one talked like they were channelling Shakespeare on an acid trip back then!' Anneka kicked out half-heartedly, one decidedly un-period accurate sneaker winking out from beneath her skirts. Ton dodged, chortling.

'Why'd you come, anyway, Ana? It's not like you _need_ the extra credit, anyway. I'm flunking Jeroldssen's module on Maritime History.' He added, glumly. 'I thought she might go easy on me with the next essay if I tagged along...'

Ton craned his head sideways to get a look at her computer screen. His eyes widened. Anneka's application was _long._

And it wasn't just for the Moesgaard Museum.

There was a neat typed list open on the screen that seemed to consist mostly of museums – although there were a few research institutes thrown in as an afterthought. A_ lot_ of conservation projects. Even a few academic journals.

Anneka flushed, pulling the laptop away.

'Thought I'd cover my bases,' she muttered, awkwardly. 'You know...'

Ton whistled. 'There's covering your bases, Ana, and then there's...' he eyed the screen. 'World domination by archaeology.'

Anneka attempted a smile. It wobbled somewhere between a grimace and biting her lip.

'Thought if I applied everywhere, _someone_ had to say yes eventually,' she explained, eyes not meeting Ton's. 'I mean, just while I wait for my thesis to be marked, and until...until Pappa calls...'

It was harder to say than she'd thought. She'd meant to sound cheerful about it; silly, absent-minded Pappa, who had probably left his mobile phone in a taxi somewhere in New Mexico. Or perhaps it was endlessly ringing, somewhere in a forgotten coat pocket at the bottom of his crumpled overnight bag.

But... as the time stretched into weeks, and then _months_ without any word from her cheerful scientist father, the attempt at laughing had got stuck in Anneka's throat, like a piece of hot apple that had gone down the wrong way. Scalding. Painful.

Ton looked awkwardly away. 'Your dad still hasn't called yet?' he said, quietly.

Anneka closed the lid of her computer with a tight little snap, lips thinning. 'No.' she said flatly. 'I asked Mamma this morning. She's in Stockholm with Birtta and Aunt Ilse. Trying to figure out what to do next. There's an office number he gave her, I think...' She shook her head. The stupid, _ridiculous_ Viking braids she'd put in her hair that morning were flying loose. She angrily batted a loose strand away from her face. 'It doesn't matter.'

Ton eyed her warily. 'You sure you're okay?'

'I _said,_ it doesn't matter!' Anneka's voice rose unnaturally loud. 'All _right_?'

'Hey, I didn't mean-'

'Look -I'm going to the library.' Anneka began stuffing her laptop any-old-how into her bag, guilt vying with irritation in her face. It wasn't fair to Ton to use him like that. She felt bad enough as it was.'I'll- I'll see you later?'

And she bolted like a startled rabbit, bag held over her head to fend off the worst of the wet. She could feel Ton's bemused stare on the back of her neck as she ran.

Anneka tried to ignore it. It would be easier to think in the dry musty calm of the library, she told herself. _Everything_ became easier there.

She didn't even make it to the top of the library steps before she gave in and pulled out her phone, staring blankly at the glow of the tiny screen as though it could make her father appear in front of her eyes. Maybe _this_ time... Just _maybe_...

She held the phone gingerly to her ear.

Instead of the reassuring notes of her mother's voice down the phone, it was Birtta who answered.

'H-hello?'

'Birtta! It's me – I... is there any news? Of Pa-'

'O-oh – it's you!' Birtta sounded relieved. 'Oh, _Anneka_-'

It took a lot to make Anneka's little sister cry. Birtta was a small, solemn-faced fourteen year old who could remain calm in the face of messy adult chaos. But the small quavering voice on the phone was almost in tears. Anneka clutched the phone, appalled.

'Birtta! Calm down – I...what's happened? Has Mamma heard anything? She was going to call-'

'She's still on the phone,' Birtta whispered, miserably. 'To that office in America. They're not letting her talk to Pappa – I t-think he's not allowed to-'

'That's rubbish!' Anneka said loudly. 'He's had military contracts before, and he always managed to call! There was that time he was giving a presentation in Washington DC when we went and stayed for the week! Why's this one so different?'

'I don't know...' Birtta's voice cracked into a sharp sob. 'Ohhhh, Annekaa...what if Pappa's _dead_, or in _trouble_-'

'Awww, come on, Birtta!'Anneka coaxed her gently over the phone, trying to quell her own panic. Poor Birtta. She noticed more of what passed around her than people thought - and, for a fourteen year old, was alarmingly good at picking up on the worries people didn't admit to themsleves. 'Listen, maybe he isn't allowed to call if it's, you know, classified. He'll be missing us just as much - whatever bunker he's in, okay? If he was in any trouble -'Anneka hesitated. A sudden horrible image of her father wearing an orange jumpsuit in some featureless prison compound scuttled across her mind, like a cockroach dislodged from a dark corner.

'If he was in any trouble, he'd find a way to let us know.' Anneka said firmly, more to the vision than to Birtta. 'And we'd go and get him.'

Birtta sniffled a little – but she sounded a little more comforted. 'We would?'

'Course!' Anneka said cheerily. 'We'd all fly in, and rescue him from the super-top-secret alien autopsies he's doing.'

Birtta chortled feebly at the weak joke.

'I really miss you, Anneka,' she said. 'Are you coming home soon?'

'Soon, ' Anneka said, clinging desperately onto the phone. The note of hope in Birtta's voice made her feel painfully guilty about all those applications. 'Really, soon. I just need to get my thesis back from Professor Becker, and-'

There was a crackle of background noise on the line.

'Think I have to go, Anneka. Mamma doesn't sound too...good.' Birtta swallowed, 'Ring back soon, okay?'

'Birtta-'

The line went dead. She'd hung up.

Anneka sighed, and mechanically moved to put the phone away -

'Hell!'

How could she have forgotten? It _was_ today! She'd said as much to Birtta, and-

Cursing savagely under her breath, Anneka broke into an ungainly run along the street towards her bus stop, cheap polyester skirts held bunched around her knees. Professor Becker had stuck up the date for returning papers _months_ ago. She'd been waiting so impatiently! She knew this was going to be a good essay; she could feel it in the marrow of her bones, and she'd _forgotten_...

Another gaggle of anorak-clad tourists (who had pointedly ignored the tent) cast surprised looks over their shoulders at the small figure with damp russet braids, haring for the bus as though her life depended on it.

Anneka hadn't _had_ to go so far north. She could have gone to university closer to home, back in Sweden - rather than the back of beyond (for her, anway) in Tønsberg. But it had been the _adventure_ of it. Studying history in a place where so _much _of it had happened, away from home... what slightly awkward dreamy undergraduate could have refused?

Especially since for Anneka, the stories it told brought a secret glow of satisfaction. It was a hoarded treasure of knowledge that increased with every semester – whether it was the Nazi occupation of Norway or analysing Snorri Sturluson's version of the _Skaldskaparmal._ There wasn't much else Anneka had control of in her life – but words and stories, _well. _They were easy once you found the way to think round them, dissect them. You had to work out what they _weren't_ saying.

She had a good feeling about her latest paper. It had been written at white-hot heat during one of those brilliant flashes of inspiration, just before Pappa had –

Anneka gritted her teeth. What _mattered_ was that she felt sure that the essay went well. It had, after all, been her favourite module.

Which, by pure coincidence, happened to be 'Conquest, Sacrifice and The Limits of Sovereignty – A Close Study of Norse Mythology.'

* * *

><p>It took a good twenty minute bus ride to get back to university – and that was <em>with<em> the funny looks at the scruffy jeans and trainers peeping out from the ridiculous dress. Apparently, bedraggled Viking goodwives weren't a common sight on the V-01 bus.

Anneka nearly threw herself from the bus before it had stopped as she broke into a sprint towards the History building. Nearly there...just a little further, nearly there...

A throng of students were already lined up outside Becker's poky office as she breathlessly stumbled down the corridor. They didn't sound very happy.

'I worked all night on that essay! Okay, so I'd been drinking, but how was I supposed to know I fell asleep on the keyboard-'

'You think you've got problems? I just flunked Maritime History! I _needed_ this one!'

'I handed mine in late. Becker just wrote 'zero' on mine...'

'Old bastard. Come on, let's go have a drink -'

Anneka skilfully elbowed her way through the retreating crowd, before pausing to catch her breath. It was true – Becker was a harsh marker. But he'd given her all but full marks on 'Gudrun and Byrnhild –Femininity at War', and she hadn't felt that one had even been her best! Surely _this_ one was sure to –

She knocked briskly at the door.

'Come!' a curt masculine voice called.

'Professor!'Anneka stood in the doorway, beaming breathlessly. 'Sorry I'm late, I-'

Professor Becker looked up from the papers on his desk at her. A spidery whippet-thin man, with the doleful face of an ascetic, it wasn't hard for him to look downcast at the best of times. But there was something _more_ when he recognised Anneka. There was a distinct look of _disappointment._

'Anneka Selvig, isn't it?' he said, coolly. 'You'd better sit down.'

Something was _wrong_.

'I came to-'

'Yes, for your _paper_,' Professor Becker reached out behind him for a sheaf of paper, which he held out at arm's length with an expression of evident distaste. 'Rather a...lengthy effort. Certainly _very_ effusive. I think, if you'd given a little more thought to the...aha, direction of your argument, this would have been quite good. As it is –' He tossed the paper on to the desk.

There was a lot of angry red ink spattering the typed pages. And a mark that Anneka could hardly believe, at first.

'W-_what_?'

In his defence, Professor Julius Becker was not a _bad_ man. He wasn't harsh to his students where he could help it, or terse in his lectures – he was simply a well-preserved example of the tweed-clad academic obsessive who takes his subject a little too seriously. His only fault was that where he had strong personal feeling on a topic, he could be as rigid and unbending as any dictator. And he did not take undergraduate argument well.

'A barely-scraped pass?' Anneka was aghast. 'But – but, Professor, I spent _weeks_ researching this!'

'With evident lack of success.' Becker snapped. 'If you had read even a _little_ criticism on the death of Balder, you would not have used him as some sort of feeble metaphor imposed by later Christianity.'

'Balder barely _exists_ in most of the texts, sir! That was a perfectly valid argument!'

'I must beg to disagree,' Becker said, with acid emphasis. 'And as for the main stem of your argument...' He shuddered. '_Well_.'

'Well?' Anneka found her face flushing. She was getting angry now. 'Well, what was _wrong_ with that? I'd been planning it since second year! There's plenty of academic evidence for-'

'Your statement that the trickster figure is simply some sort of scapegoat for a tyrannical creator-destroyer is – _flawed.'_

A muscle twitched spasmodically in Becker's cheek.

_Oh,_ Anneka thought bitterly. _That_ was it, was it? She had forgotten. Becker had written a good many articles back in the late sixties that had made his name; all _about_ the cult of Odin and the worship of the All-Father. This wasn't a dispassionate academic view of her paper. Becker was _angry_ because she had attempted to tear down that old image – Odin as the benevolent father figure, the grand old king. And – Anneka realised her mistake, too late – because she had cited some of his own work in her essay. And ever-so-slightly jeered at it.

Too late to say sorry now. And Becker certainly wasn't being _fair_. Anneka jerked her chin up, dark eyes flashing.

'I wrote what I thought,' she said stubbornly, fingers clenching convulsively over the edge of her seat. 'I wanted to write about tricksters.'

Becker's lips thinned, visibly. 'So I _see_. Well, I hope you are content with your grade, in that case-'

'But they're _important_!' Anneka burst out. 'Professor, it's not all about warriors and slaying! The legends prove that the Vikings respected cunning, and quick wits – it's what sets them _apart_! If you can't see that...' Anneka looked up, desperately. 'Please. _Please_...if you'd just read it again...'

'I _have_ read it,' Becker said sharply. 'Twice. And I can hardly think that the opinion of –hmm, what was it? "The stagnation of hero-worshipping early academics" can matter very much to such a ...a _modern thinker_. My mark _stands_, unless you wish to rewrite it.'

'Rewrite...' Anneka's temper snapped, like a rotten twig. It had been beckoning all day, being on edge – Pappan, the Living History Week... and now this – this, to top all! She rose to her feet.

'You - _you_ are a horrible, vicious old fossil!' she said, voice trembling with anger. 'And you can take your rewrite and-'

She grabbed quickly at the spurned essay, dislodging a handful of papers from Becker's desk '- And _shove_ it!'

And, with that startling riposte, Anneka darted through the door in a whirlwind of angry tears and scattered essays that left Professor Becker gasping in outrage. Like a stranded fish.

Ugh, _academics_! Of all the pig-headed, horrible – and she'd been so confident! So _sure..._ Maybe if she hadn't been so hard on Becker's own articles... she hadn't meant to –

No! That was _wrong!_ The stubborn side of Anneka screamed. She paused for breath halfway down an empty corridor. It smelt of stale pencil-shavings and disinfectant – that peculiarly scholastic smell you only get within the clinical walls of education.

It stank of failure to _her._ The endless tension about Pappa had finally snapped – spectacularly, and with much the same result as if she'd lobbed a firecracker into Becker's study. What was worse, it was Professor Becker who wrote the academic references for his students at the end of term. The Moesgaard Museum? Gone. The Stockholm Museum internship, close to home? Lost in a puff of smoke. And all because of one ill-timed essay that had spoilt _everything_...

Anneka glanced mechanically down at the paper she was clutching protectively to her chest. She was tempted, for a moment, to vent her despair on it – tear it into pieces, scatter it like snow over the plastic floor tiles. But only for a minute. She had poured far too much of herself into the essay to just rip it up so easily.

'S'ppose it's not really your fault,' she mumbled, patting the title page. 'Heh, an essay about tricksters getting me into trouble. Who'd have thought it? That's _ironic..._'

She glanced down at the paper she had snatched from Becker's desk for the first time – only to find; it _wasn't_ her paper.

Or rather, it was. She must have snatched up some of Becker's other desk-litter by mistake as well as the essay when she ran out. Mixed in amongst the sheets were a couple of printed pages with some sort of official letterhead...

Oh well. Anneka didn't feel gracious enough to return them. Serve him right if it was something important! She thought, with just a touch of petty spite. Anneka had many good qualities, but instant forgiveness was not one of them. So what _was_ this letter that had been – on – his desk...

Anneka's eyes widened in sudden recognition.

The logo – that stylized eagle with spread wings – was one she recognised.

As was the name.

_Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division._

Pappa's head office. The one that wouldn't give out anything when her mother rang.

All thought of anything else flew out of Anneka's head. _Pappa. _Gasping, she cast a furtive look around, and then bundled the sheaf of crumpled paper into her rucksack, letter and all. This would need a closer look, somewhere out of the way.

Why would S.H.I.E.L.D be writing to her college professor?

* * *

><p>In a small, stiflingly hot room in New Mexico, the small, square inch that still remained of Erik Selvig's mind surfaced, gasping for air.<p>

He was slumped back in his office chair in his darkened living quarters, back aching, eyes almost crusted over. A glowing computer screen reflected page after page of complex equations. Selvig dimly realised he must have worked on them himself, although he certainly had no memory of it. The lines and lines of data that scrolled by on the screen was alarmingly unfamiliar to him, although occasionally a line of maths would leap out at him as being... important? Somehow?

If only he could _remember _how they got there...

It was happening more often now. The blanks in his mind. It frightened him more than he could say. One moment he would be awake, and himself – and there was something he was trying desperately to remember - something he was been meaning to do...

And then everything would_ shift_. It was like staring at a bright light, Selvig dimly thought. Those strange bright blue spots that stopped you from seeing the world for a while. Only, in this case, the blue spread _inwards_, and he would wake days, sometimes _weeks_ later, to discover he had been locked up in here, speaking to no-one. He wasn't even sure he remembered to feed himself any more. Was the Science Division's canteen on the third floor? The second?

_At least I'm still alive,_ Erik thought hazily. _I must have remembered_. He glanced down at his trousers. _Gud_, but he hadn't thought to change! They were stained and greasy, and worst of all, they _smelt. _Had he been walking around the SHIELD complex like this? It was as though he hadn't bothered to _wash_ for months on end, let alone change his clothes...

He tried, dizzily, to stand up, and nearly cried out at the ache in his bones. Had he gone to sleep in that cursed chair?

_It was the Cube_, Erik thought. _Working on it...It must be breaking me. I should never have agreed to...wait, __when__ did I agree to work on it?_

Panic began to rise like bile at the back of Doctor Selvig's throat. The blankness would come back, he knew it. Whatever it was – the Cube, or... or something else, it had only left him for a little while. It would return, and -

Erik stumbled towards the small ensuite bathroom. Wash first. Food. Then find Jane. He could talk to her about it. She'd understand, try to help...

He nearly screamed when he flicked on the light switch.

The gaunt, rubbery-faced _thing_ in the mirror, with the bruise coloured pouches under its eyes and the unnaturally swollen stomach, looked like a man in the last stage of a terminal illness. It was only the fact that it was wearing _his_ clothes that made Erik Selvig recognise it as his own reflection.

He backed away, fighting down a wave of hysteria. How had he got to the point where he looked like this?

He turned blindly, and groped his way over to the desk, hurriedly trying to open his email. Whatever _it_ was, it wasn't letting him out of the room. He could only hope that he could send a message and –

His vision blurred.

It was coming back. He could feel it.

He couldn't let it get the better of him! Selvig tried to pull himself together, and typed 'HJELPK ME. PLEASDFE', keys slurring together as his hands began to lose sensation. Whatever _it_ was, it must have realised he was up to something – the blankness rose faster now, cutting off his thoughts as though choking him with sleep. But – but just to...

Selvig mentally kicked out, managing a few seconds of consciousness more. It was hardly a resistance – but it was enough for him to select the first name on his contact list at random and click 'send' before he fell face first into the keyboard.

_It_ would probably hurt him for that, Selvig thought bleakly, as he began to drown in the cloying blackness once more. It could. _It_ had done that once before when he had tried to stop looking at the numbers. But he didn't care. He had fought back, for once. Someone out there would get his message...

Selvig's eyes became blank, clouded. _Someone_...

And then... there was nothing.

* * *

><p>Anneka sat cross-legged on her bed and carefully read through the S.H.I.E.L.D letter again. She had done this at least twice since bursting into her poky student flat. She had needed to, in order to take it all in.<p>

To her initial disappointment, it had nothing to do with her father at all. Not that Becker would be getting letters about him, but still...

It was a job vacancy. In Linguistics, as an 'Administrative Assistant' although Anneka correctly judged that to be corporate flannel. Job specifications were_ always_ written like that. That was nothing new. What was... interesting was the fact that an obscure American Government department, of all things, should be looking for 'an able and fluent translator of Old Norse, with a sound background in ancient Scandinavian culture and mythology.'

That wasn't government stuff! What did _government _have to do with that? Unless there was some closely hidden Viking longship burial out in the middle of Las Vegas...

Anneka briefly considered this. Unlikely. Hopefully, anyway. She read on, mind in a whirl.

From what Pappa had told them via one cheerful crackling telephone call made at the beginning of his long absence, S.H.I.E.L.D was some sort of defence related scientific research project. Lots of money, but it probably didn't have a jauntily designed webpage out there. It was _too_ confidential for that. It had been as much as Pappa had been able to do to give them the Human Resources phone number in case of trouble.

Well, _they'd_ been no help, Anneka thought bitterly. Perhaps her mother was still sat with damp eyes in Aunt Ilse's house, trying to reach someone.

She scanned down the page. Hmm, yes, 'liaising with senior consultants, strict confidentiality...' So far, so good. But _why_ did S.H.I.E.L.D want a Viking historian? More importantly... Anneka boggled at the string of numbers that was the starting salary. It ran to five figures.

Why had no-one snatched it up? The Arts and Humanities department could, at best, be described as 'threadbare'. She was half-surprised Becker hadn't immediately put his name down for it himself. Government work, highly prestigious...academics with strings of letters to their name should have _swarmed_ at this sort of opening!

But Becker... hadn't. Scrawled across the bottom of the letter in untidy red biro was the simple terse comment 'Out of the question. Conference in June.'

_So_... Anneka sat back on her haunches, a horrible temptation forming in her mind.

It was quite simple, really. Becker wasn't interested. It wasn't the sort of circular that would get posted on a student job page. S.H.I.E.L.D would assume only the people intended to get the post had got the job advertisement.

Anyone who applied would be considered. At worst she'd be rejected for the job – but what had that huge resume she'd built up _been_ for, after all? A career that was probably dragging its heels in the dust, thanks to Becker and his academic reports. She could at least _ask_ about Pappan, Anneka told herself. That would be enough, wouldn't it?

Although... at the back of her mind, a vision of herself formed. A supremely confident idea of bringing her father back in triumph, to the relief of her loving family.

Who _wouldn't_ want that?

_But_. Anneka gnawed her fingers. Mamman would never let her go and work for the mysterious division that had taken her father from her. And rightly, too. Anneka was more frightened by the prospect than she was really admitting, even to herself.

'If only I knew what to _do_,' Anneka said softly. Would it be better to go home and sit waiting for news? Or – or _do_ something about it?

There was an official email address at the bottom of the page.

_All applications to be sent to Enforcement and Logistics Division [Training and Recruitment Department]._

It was worth a look.

Just a look, Anneka told herself firmly, as she pulled her laptop to her knee. It isn't like I'm about to send them my résumé. I'm just looking...

The sudden irritable chirrup of her computer jolted Anneka out of her indecision.

_1 unread message._

From a Swedish university account?

Pappa!

He wasn't dead after all, or locked up! He'd emailed! Finally! This was a _sign_. A definite sign about what to do! Pappan would show her the way, and she could let everyone know he was okay–

She clicked 'open'. And stared blankly at the document for second, before reading it again.

HJELPK ME. PLEASDFE.

All Aneka's elation disappeared like smoke.

It was as though her words to Birtta had come back to haunt her. _If Pappa was in trouble he'd find a way to let us know..._

It was _true, _then_._

But -at least she knew what to do, _now_. That desperate, disjointed message _was_ a sign. Her father was in trouble, somewhere. Her mother might not be able to do anything, but Anneka –

Anneka had a chance.

She was already typing in the recruitment department's email address with hard, precise little taps before Selvig's email had even had time to become stale, 'read' mail.

Hang on, Pappa, she thought urgently. Hang _on_. I'm coming...


	3. If It Be Sin, to Covet Honour

"..._Do but think,_

_ How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown,_

_ Within whose circuit is Elysium, _

_And all that poets feign of bliss and joy..."_

**Henry VI, Part III**

Puente Antiguo was a predictable, quiet little town. The small cafes that lined the dusty road, the lopsided thrift stores, pieces of furniture stuck hopefully in dirt-speckled windows; New Mexico has hundreds of small, out-of-the-way places just like it, hanging on the cusp of the rose-coloured desert. Not big enough to attract tourists, but it was a good place to get a cup of coffee and a newspaper if you were passing through.

Or at least, it had been. Puente Antiguo was rapidly losing its small-town edge.

The S.H.I.E.L.D complex hadn't left. They'd shifted the site a few miles south-west, where it had become more permanent. No more sheeted plastic tunnels and hurriedly brought in equipment. The electric fences had gone up, guards and checkpoints were installed, and an ugly citadel of grey steel Portakabins surrounded an apparently random spot in the desert. For the bewildered residents in Puente Antiguo, it was as though Area 51 had decided to move next door - and occasionally, deign to buy drinks and the odd box of doughnuts from them.

Mind you, the staff from the base seemed...okay, when they were in town. A few of them came off their shifts to get coffee, buy a few rounds of beer in the evenings. They weren't rowdy. They were polite, made the odd joke or two, and then vanished back into their hive of concrete and metal. But a sense of distinct unease leaked from those solemn, featureless security men, even on their coffee breaks when they were buying coffee and thick slices of cake from Izzy's place. These were hardened operatives, men who had been in _far_ worse places than a sleepy backwater like Puente Antiguo...

And something about their new base _scared_ them.

For instance, none of them liked duty on Level Three, whatever that was. The waitress who served them picked that up by about the second week in. Level Three was creepy_. _Things moved, just out of the corner of your eye, in empty rooms. There was a lot of polished steel and glass around – well, it was the tech lab! It could just be your own reflection, catching you off guard. There was a lot of nervous male laughter at that.

But...

After what had happened to one of the security team on night shift, no one laughed any more.

Everyone had known Jim Towser. He'd been steady – good for a laugh and a round in the bar, once in a while. It had come as a shock to everyone when...

As far as anyone knew, Jim had gone off to his shift as usual. He hadn't answered his radio after a while though, and people had got worried.

When they eventually went looking for him, they found him by the trail of blood. His, as it turned out.

He'd shot at an observation window in one of the labs, covering the place in broken glass. Nearly cut his own face to ribbons. The weird thing was, it looked as though he'd turned and beaten his own head against the _wall_afterwards...

He'd kept saying something, over and over, when they found him cowering beneath a worktop.

'The eyes - the eyes, they were _**everywhere **_-'

No-one knew what 'the eyes' were. Of course, the big guys said it was post-traumatic stress disorder. Jim had been in the army, so they talked about 'delayed reaction' and 'sudden collapse' as though that made it all right. Made it _understandable_.

But it was certainly enough to give the new Puente Antiguo base a bad name amongst the security men.

It wasn't right.

It felt _haunted_.

* * *

><p>They were right.<p>

The S.H.I.E.L.D base at Puente Antiguo _was _haunted. And the secret lay in the reflections – or, more importantly, in the mirrors. Mirrors are boundaries; they hover on a cusp that is somewhere between illusion and reality. They reflect what people _want_ to see, rather than what is actually there. What better place for a practiced sorcerer to hide? Mirrors are a perfect place of concealment for a cautious observer, when one wishes to move unseen.

The security men would have been hard put to describe exactly when the base at Puente Antiguo became (for want of a better word) _creepy._ This suggested that the presence that glided through SHIELD – in the reflection from a spilt drink, a moment's flickering image in a window – had been there far longer than anyone could have guessed.

Thor would have had difficulty in recognising the sparse, emaciated figure that lurked in flickers of polished glass as his brother. Magic is a matter of balance. Over-use it, and it feeds... _inwards. _The hollow-cheeked, feverish spectre that clawed an existence from forgotten scraps and snatched rest was a far cry from the smooth-faced prince of lies that had once been Loki Odinsson, and his magic showed it. It was acquiring a feral, savage edge.

The foolish guard had been a blunder, admittedly. He had been growing careless, and the Midgardian sot had caught a glimpse that had cost him dear. But it had been diverting to see how such petty illusions had twisted the man so. They would not have fooled a child of twelve in Asgard. Or then again –

Perhaps they would. At last. Loki's eyes half closed in a lazy, inward-turning smile that froze into a pained grimace. He gritted his teeth, fighting off the pain. The illusions had cost him strength he barely had. Mirrors are double-edged swords in works of magic, and Loki had used them constantly for months on end, far too long for any sorcerer to use in safety. What would have once been the easy construct of a few minutes' thought was now like walking on a knife-blade.

But it was _worth_ the pain. How like sheep they were! So easy to direct! Oh, the scholar Selvig had _moment_s of rebellion. He had caught him sprawled across that peculiar scrying glass that mortals used, trying to invoke some sort of aid - but whatever incantation the ox-like fool had used, it had _failed_. What passed for magic on Midgard! In any case, the wretch would not trouble him much further. His usefulness was nearly at an end, and soon... _soon_...

Loki drew a deep, shuddering breath of anticipation. Soon, there would be the sweet taste of sovereignty; _earned_ by his own hand, no less. No more weak dependence on feeble good graces - favours hard won, and soon forgotten. No – this would be so much _better_.

The 'Slanderer of the Gods' flitted away, through the many warped reflections of Puente Antiguo.

But there was much work to do, before that...

* * *

><p>Anneka regretted posting off her application to S.H.I.E.L.D almost immediately after she had clicked 'send' – and worried about it for nearly a week afterwards. All the sensible, cautious things that she'd ignored as she frantically typed her way to Pappa's rescue came flooding back to her. They'd be able to track this wasn't meant for her! She could end up being detained 'at the Government's pleasure'! Criminal charges, fraudulent information... And even if by some miracle they <em>did<em> consider her, who'd really hire a green post-graduate? _Really?_

But – after a nail-biting week of endless worries, Anneka eventually relaxed. Nothing had appeared. She would never see Becker again, since the module was finished – and in any case, she had carefully slipped the ill-fated S.H.I.E.L.D letter back underneath his office door. With any luck, Becker hadn't even noticed it was gone. All she had to do was swallow her pride, accept the abysmal academic report...

But... _Pappa._ The more Anneka stared at that hopeless jumble of words that had somehow found its way to her, the more she felt that the risk had been worth it.

Pappan _was_ in trouble, and she had at least _tried_ something. That had to count for something, surely?

'All right, everyone!' Anneka jerked awake, elbow slipping from her desk. Professor Jeroldssen's seminar on Maritime History was _already_ over? And her notes so far consisted of... the heading. And biro squiggles.

Ugh. So much for _that_. Anneka just couldn't help persistently picking at her fears like a scabby knee. Her mother had still heard nothing from S.H.I.E.L.D when she'd called again. The connection had been bad.

And Anneka still hadn't had the heart to tell her mother about the email. She couldn't. It would make Mamman ten times more frantic than she was already...

The classroom was almost empty already. Maritime History, despite poor Professor Jeroldssen's best efforts, was not a popular course.

Oh well, Anneka thought wearily, as she swung her backpack over one aching shoulder. Perhaps it was for the best after all...

She wandered through the stale-fluff smell of the Humanities Building in a haze. Suppose she did try and tell Mamman about the-

'Ms. Selvig?'

Anneka's head jerked up.

There were two suits standing in her way. Not down-at-heel casual academic suits, the sort of 'casual leather jacket look' some of the more progressive professors adopted. The blank-faced men inside them looked as though they'd been severely starched into exact military proportions.

Anneka froze, clutching her bag to her chest. 'Y-yes?' she said uncertainly. Her heart sank down to her shoes. _Prison_, a hysterical voice gabbled in her head. _Criminal charges, extradition..._

'You _are_ Ms Anneka Selvig?'

Anneka instinctively disliked the 'Ms.' It sounded like death by excessive formality.

'I'm Anneka Selvig,' she said, in a voice that wobbled into a high, quavering note. 'Is there anything wrong? Can I help you -'

One of the suits – slightly stockier than the first, leaned in, sleeves wrinkling. 'Nothing wrong, ma'am. Just a routine interview. If you'd like to come with us, please?'

'I-interview?' Anneka's brown eyes widened in horror. _Police interview, faceless agents_, _that bit where they shout at you until you tell them the truth_... 'I don't – I should really be heading to my next cla-'

'You'd be kinda early if you did, ma'am. Your next lecture isn't until tomorrow morning.'

'How did you-'

The other suit had judiciously taken hold of Anneka's elbow.

'You can ask questions later. This way?'

It wasn't a question. Anneka sagged, nodding numbly. _Prison_ and_ criminal charges_ had formed a gloomy mantra inside her head.

Although she blinked in surprise at the fact that she wasn't being led out of the University building. On the contrary, the suits were actually herding her in the direction of the older, empty offices on the far side of the building.

_Oh good. It's probably so no-one can hear the screams when they beat me up_, Anneka thought, light-headed. Although to be fair, that was a touch extreme. Maybe just the shouting, then?

The suit holding her elbow muttered something inaudible into an earpiece as they approached an office door, before letting go of her sleeve.

'If you'll head in there?' The stocky suit said politely. 'They're waiting for you.'

He even went to the trouble to knock for her. Anneka would rather not have given him the trouble at all. But, looking behind her at the impassable wall of angular suit, there was no way back. And only one way forward.

She pushed open the door, hands shaking.

It was a small office – utterly empty apart from a small, rickety-looking desk positioned delicately in the middle of the room. There was a plate of stale ginger biscuits, and two polystyrene cups of coffee. One had slopped over the table, leaving a circle of sticky brown mess.

And, as though matching the furniture, there was a small, colourless-looking man sitting behind it all, musingly reading a copy of the _New York Post_. He looked up almost affably.

'That was _quick_,' he said cheerily, folding up his newspaper. 'I barely had time to read the editorial, let alone the sport...'

The stocky suit actually _saluted_.

'Would you like to take a seat, Miss Selvig?' the man behind the desk asked Anneka, politely, before waving away the suits with an impatient flick of his fingers. 'I've a few things I'd like to talk over with you...'

Anneka almost wished they'd stayed. She fell, rather than sat down, into the prickly office chair.

'I'm sorry!' she burst out. The high, wobbling note was bursting out now and then in her voice. 'Really, I didn't mean to do it, but we were just so worried -and I _know_ it was wrong, but...'

The mouse-haired man looked surprised. 'Excuse me?'

Anneka cast a wild glance at him. 'The application, of course!' she said, almost choking on her confession. 'Because it wasn't sent to _me_, it was sent to Professor Becker, and I was only trying to-'

'Oh, _that_ application. Yes, it certainly uh, puzzled our Human Resources for a while.' The man said dryly. A not-quite smile flickered briefly at the corner of his lips. 'There's some pretty severe laws regarding appropriating other people's information like that, Miss Selvig-'

'I can explain-'

'Ah-ah?' he hold up a hand. 'But, as it happens, I'm not here about that. I'm here about _you_.'

'_Me_?' Anneka was bewildered. Her fingers gripped the seat of her chair convulsively. 'But – wait, what are you saying? You're not here about the application?'

'Oh, I _am_ here about that, Miss Selvig. But I'm here more _because_ of your application, than about it.'

'I don't-'

'You've studied for... let me see, four, no, _five_ years in Norwegian History?'

'Wha - Yes. Yes!'

'Why?' The man asked simply, helping himself to a biscuit.

Anneka blinked. 'Why? What do you mean, _why?_'

'Why Norwegian History?'

Anneka found herself at a loss for words. She had _no_ idea how to handle a police interrogation dealt with like this. Especially when being politely quizzed about her subject as though they were simply talking in a cafe.

'It – it was far away from home?' she ventured. 'I wanted a change, I guess.'

'You like it?'

What kind of question was that? 'Yes.'

'You've translated some of the er...what _is_ this? 'The_ Sybil's Prophecy,'_ I see.' The man peered down at a sheaf of papers, still munching away. 'Excellent grades and glowing reports all the way, apart from this last one...'

_Oh._ Becker.

Anneka's utter bewilderment had reached its limit. 'Please, if Professor Becker is still angry I'm truly sorry, Mr –'

'Coulson,' he said helpfully. 'Agent Phil Coulson. But never mind Professor Becker. I told you, I'm here _because_ of your application.'

Anneka stared.

Coulson noticed her blank stare of incomprehension and sighed, audibly.

'Miss Selvig – I'm going to be straight with you. Your application attracted interest because it was one of a very few that actually _wanted_ the job. Most of the people – extremely senior and experienced people, I might add - turned it down. And your academic qualifications_ are_ pretty sound, when it gets down to it. More than enough for what we need.'

'They are?' Anneka hazarded, trying vainly to recall how much she had 'exaggerated' on the application.

'That what we're here to determine.'

Anneka blinked, realization dawning at last.

'This is a _job interview_?'

Coulson looked startled. 'What did you think it was?'

'But the – the men in suits, the –'Anneka gestured wordlessly.

'Oh. Sorry about that. You could say our interviews aren't exactly...run-of-the-mill. Security reasons. I'm sure you understand,' Coulson examined the plate of ginger biscuits, cautiously. 'Although if you were being interrogated, we'd definitely have better cookies. These are _awful_.'

He said it so solemnly it took Anneka a moment to realise it was a joke. She was still too shell-shocked by the whole turn of events.

'Any way... Miss Selvig, since you _are_ an interested party, we wondered if you'd look at... _this._' Coulson slid a large glossy photo across the desk.

It was... well, at first Anneka didn't know what it was. Apparently a close-up of a rocky desert floor somewhere, although where was anyone's guess.

Until you looked closer.

A strange circle was branded into the gritty dust. But it wasn't _just_ a circle. Curled within the outline were hundred of lines more – _thousands_, even. The loops made your eyes hurt if you looked at them for too long. Anneka was already fighting back the water in her eyes – but she couldn't look away. She was mesmerised. She _knew_ the patterns too well from the textbooks – those peculiar angular coils, quite different from the fluid curves of the Celts. It was an age-old pattern found engraved on standing stones, grave markers, scored on the prow of burial-boats...

'Yggdrasil,' Anneka breathed, looking down reverently. 'It's Yggdrasil and Ragnarök, but...carved together?' she frowned. 'I've only ever seen one, or the other. Not both... And never... never this clear!'

'Yes?' Coulson sounded guardedly interested. 'Patterns like this have been found before?'

'All the time,' Anneka said, holding the photo up for closer scrutiny. 'It had religious significance, after all. Yggdrasil's the world tree. It holds the threads of the world together. You often see it carved for good luck, or for rebirth on graves .But...it's not _just_ a pattern. See here?' She pointed to a few blurred, pixellated lines running in short bursts through the carvings. 'Those are runes. I think...from what I can see, they look like verses. It looks a little like – it could be the _Lay of Grimnir_? But... but it's twisted up with verses about Ragnarök.'She shook her head. 'I've never seen _anything_ like this.'

Coulson had been watching her face closely since he had slid the photo across the desk. The hunted look had disappeared from Anneka's round face. She was completely absorbed in the photograph, fingers tracing barely seen images with genuine pleasure. All thought of Pappan had completely left her head.

'You could translate this, then? If you came on-site with our specialists, of course.' Coulson said nonchalantly, gently sliding the photo away from Anneka's outstretched one was _hooked_. The girl's eyes followed the photograph hungrily, mouth falling half-open.

'You'd let me _look_ at this? Properly? I mean –_really_?'

'If you're interested.' Coulson knew a fervent academic when he saw one. She seemed almost over-qualified, for a kid her age. Still.

'I have a few questions for you before _that_, Miss Selvig. We deal with a good deal of highly...sensitive information, you could say. _This_...' Coulson's finger pointed expressively down at the glossy photo, ' is... unusual, to say the least. It's not exactly archaelogical. Mythological, maybe.'

Anneka looked askance. 'Mythological?'

'Yes. In general. Gods, and so on.' Coulson's eyes watched her carefully, measuring her reaction.

All right. this was now definitely falling into Anneka's idea of 'weird.' The sort of thing strange, half-drunken conversations in the student bar usually dealt with. 'You mean... in a _'man was not meant to know'_ way?' she asked, biting her lip. Vague images of the Holy Grail kept flashing before her mind; late-night films with chiselled heroes in fedoras and leather jackets.

'Afraid?' Coulson's eyes were challenging.

'It's appropriate to be afraid of gods,' Anneka said thoughtfully. 'Even dead ones. Don't you think? I mean... it's important to show respect. I mean-' she floundered, looking for the right words. He was probably worried about press exposure, she thought, privately. Did he think she was one of those awful grasping scholars who just greedily published everything they got their hands on? Not this! This was so far from a longship in Las Vegas... if anything, it was actually _better_. Just to _be_ there!

'If you're worried about publicity, I won't do anything,' she said, anxiously. 'And... mythological or not, I'd really like to - I'd love to...'

Coulson scribbled something unreadable on a notepad next to him, nodding.

'Well, I think that about wraps it up for us here,' he said, looking up to flash Anneka a slight smile. 'Your plane tickets should be in the post shortly, along with your visa. You'll find things move pretty fast when we get going...'

'What?'

'You're in, Miss Selvig.' Coulson leant over the desk, and extended a hand. 'Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D.'

Anneka shook his hand with the oddest feeling of being in a dream.

'I thought you had other people lined up...' she said, half-accusingly.

'When I said a few,' Coulson said gravely, 'I meant a _very_ few. A number between one and three.' His eyelids crinkled at the corners as he smiled. 'A pleasure to meet another Selvig, by the way. Your father's heading our research team at the moment, and I must say, he's impressed a lot of people-'

'Pappa!' Anneka's shoulders jerked back. 'He's not in trouble? Have you talked to him? Is he okay-'

'Whoa!' Coulson's eyebrows lifted upwards. 'Dr Selvig's fine, as far as I know. And he's _certainly_ not in trouble. Far from it. I think some science institute is pushing him for an award for his work on the Foster Theory.'

'He hasn't called,' Anneka explained. 'For months now. My mother's been ringing people, thinking he's fallen off a cliff or something.' She tried to laugh, but it still stuck in her throat, painfully. 'Y -you're sure he's okay?'

Was that pity flickering in the colourless man's eyes at the nervy little student girl? I don't want your pity, Anneka thought fiercely. I want Pappa to be _safe_.

'Your father is more than okay, Miss Selvig.' Bemusement flickered in Coulson's face. 'In fact, you can ask him yourself. You're both assigned at the Puente Antiguo base.'

Anneka let out a long breath she barely realised she'd been holding in.

'C-could you ask him to call my mother? If you see him? Only she's been frantic for news, and we thought-'

'_Ah_,' Coulson nodded, wisely. 'I think I can explain that. Scientists often get a little...ah, over-excited, shall we say, when they take a good look at what our resources have to offer. We had one tech assistant who didn't leave the workroom for two days during his first week. ' He smiled. 'I'll get Dr Selvig to call your family. Don't worry.'

'Thank you,' Anneka said fervently. 'Really. This is –' her eyes flickered back to the photo. 'This is better than anything I...really, thank you!'

She nearly walked into the door as she left. But she didn't care. As soon as she left the room – passing the two suits, who gave her friendly nods as she walked by – Anneka leapt up, punching the air with barely contained triumph. She'd done it! She'd find Pappa, see him, find out what was wrong! She could ring her mother, tell her he was alright – better yet, that she'd got an amazing research post abroad! And the _photo_...

Anneka hugged her bag to her chest in a fit of intellectual rapture. The photo! She hadn't expected _anythin_g quite like this! Instead of the old smothered feeling of anxiety, suddenly life looked like an adventure – venturing into places unknown - working on a proper archaeological dig! What could be better? The romantic in Anneka saw herself as a brave, hobbit-like figure - wielding her own modest stock of knowledge to best advantage, working near fubsy, absent-minded Pappa, straying from the beaten path to find new adventure!

Life was suddenly – and almost _unbelievabl_y, falling into place, in the way normally only idle daydreams actually _allowed_. Perfect, Anneka thought, as she raced along the corridor, heart pounding with happiness. That was the word. Life was suddenly..._perfect._

* * *

><p>Although that would probably not have been the word her mother would have used. It took three persistently cheerful, upbeat and... well, <em>lying<em> phone-calls to make Mamma feel at all happy about Anneka going abroad.

'It's so _far_, Ana...'

'Mamma, it's _fine_, I swear!' Anneka cradled the phone to her ear, staring at the tickets in her hand. _Oslo to Albuquerque_. 'I'm working near Pappa! He... emailed me to say he's looking forward to seeing me!'

Well, he _had_ emailed her.

'Oh?' Mamma sounded suspicious. 'Why didn't he _call_ you, to explain what's happened? Or call us? There must be a dozen messages from me on his phone-'

_Crap._

'Security issues,' Anneka gabbled, hastily. 'He said he was going to get in touch with you, Mamma, soon as he could. He was worried about you and Birtta thinking the worst, _really_ – only they don't allow phones when he's onsite, working. He's been busy, but he said-'Anneka swallowed. 'He said to give you and Birtta all his love. He really misses us all.'

'He does?' a softer, relieved note crept back into her mother's voice. 'The work-mad fool. Making us worried sick...Well, _you_ keep in touch, Anneka. At least we can rely on you! Take care, _bebis_.'

Anneka felt sick, thinking about the lies she'd told to her mother. Sick and guilty. But surely he'd ring soon! For some reason, she trusted Coulson. For all he was a vaguely anonymous man in a suit, he'd seemed genuinely _surprised_ at her questions about her father. But the _email_...

Why would her father send out an email with a garbled, desperate message of 'HELP ME' if he was all right? His unnatural silence spoke for itself. Unless...unless it was some sort of trouble that – perhaps - even SHIELD didn't know about...

Anneka's jaw tightened. Well, one way or another, she'd soon learn the truth. New Mexico would give her answers, like it or not...


	4. SHIELD and Level Three

_"__Allestädes framme får ofta näsbränna__."_

By being first everywhere one may find trouble.

**Swedish Proverb.**

* * *

><p>New Mexico, as it turned out, wasn't exactly what Anneka thought.<p>

For one thing, it was _cold_.

Anneka had, in all innocence, cheerfully expected something not unlike a cartoon stereotype of _actual_ Mexico –sombreros, a single solitary cactus standing in the middle of an orange desert, clay pueblos... She'd even gone so far as to pack what remained of her summer wardrobe from last year, just in case. Looking at the iron grey skies overhead, Anneka shivered closer into her anorak and was glad she'd listened to her mother about packing sweaters.

She couldn't help feeling awfully _small_, lost in the busy, bustling crowds of the airport. Everyone else looked so purposeful! They _knew_ what they were doing here in Albuquerque. Anneka was just being buffeted about, suitcase trailing behind her like a small tug boat in a swell, waiting for a strip of cardboard with her name on it.

Or maybe – Anneka looked around, eagerly expecting a familiar stocky figure in a bulky jumper to be standing waiting for her.

There were plenty of fatherly looking men standing waiting at Gate Five. But none of them had the same erratic tufts of receding greying hair that meant Pappa, or the good-humoured face. And the crowd of passengers was already thinning.

Oh. Anneka's shoulders sagged. She'd be the only one stood here soon.

'Hey! Over here!'

But _here_ was a strip of cardboard with her name on it. Someone had taken the trouble to stick glittery stars to it, too – and it was being waved frantically aloft by a teenage girl in a floppy woollen hat, as though Anneka was some sort of rock star.

'Hey!' she called.

'You Anneka?' The girl lowered the sign. 'Gosh, I thought you'd be blonde! You know?'

'Blonde?'

'You know? Being Swedish? I mean, your dad's _sort_ of blonde, although to be honest, his hair's more _disappearing_...' She stuck out a hand. 'I'm Darcy.'

Anneka took it cautiously, scowling slightly at her reflection in the airport's huge plate-glass windows. A diminutive, plump russet-haired figure stared back with tired eyes, almost bent double under the weight of her luggage. _Blonde? _Really?

'Are you – are you my welcome party?' she asked, hesitantly.

'What?' Darcy beamed. 'Gosh, yes! I mean, they were going to send a couple of drivers from the base, but Jane_ totally_ said no to that – I mean, they're nice and all, but come _on_, on your first day? That's pretty hardcore. It isn't exactly a welcome...' She flourished the cardboard sign. 'We're much nicer! I put the stars on! And I think Jane's around here _somewhere_... Heh, probably still parking. She is _lethal_ on busy roads, seriously! '

Anneka smiled back. 'Thanks. I – um, did my dad come-'

'Are you hungry?' Darcy was babbling on. 'Because I'm kinda hungry. And we don't get out of town much, since all this crazy stuff started – _well_.' She looked at Anneka knowingly, out of the corner of one eye. 'You _know_, right? About the... stuff? I bet your dad told you, right? That's why you're here...'

'About my dad...'

'Yeah?'

'Did he come?' Anneka looked round, hopefully. 'Is he here?'

Darcy looked away for a moment, obviously embarrassed.

'Oh hey!' she said brightly. 'Look, I think I see Jane! This is going to be so great! I mean, there aren't really any other girls – I mean, there are _agents_ and all, but you're the first straight-up proper student I've seen since I got here! We can have movie marathons, and talk, and-'

Anneka felt her heart sink into her boots. Pappa hadn't come. And even this tall, talkative girl swathed in jumpers and rainbow mittens seemed to feel uncomfortable about it.

'Hey, Darcy! Give her some space to breathe, huh?'

A cheerful, slight figure in a soft flannel shirt picked her way towards them through the dwindling crowd.

'Nice to see you!' she said cheerfully, jauntily taking Anneka's bag for her. 'I see Darcy's already talked you to death-'

'Hey, I was just being friendly! I was saying we could go and get something to eat, before heading back...' Darcy sounded hopeful.

'Aha, _nice_ try. We can do that back in Puente Antiguo.'

'But they have Starbucks here! Jane, pleaaase...'

'Did my dad not come?' Anneka said abruptly, hands clenching inside her pockets. 'With you?'

There was an awkward silence. Jane threw a glance at Darcy, who shuffled defensively into her woollen beret as though she were a hermit crab.

'We should talk about that.' Jane said, still glaring at Darcy. 'But... not here. We'll talk in the car home.' She threw Anneka's bag to Darcy. 'Come on, Anneka. It's as well this is a _long_ drive...'

The 'car' turned out to be a huge lumbering rattletrap of an SUV that had a comforting, familiar smell of stale dust and dried mud.

'First off,' Jane turned slightly in the driving seat to look seriously at Anneka. 'When's the last time _you_ heard from your father?'

'_Pappa_? We last _heard_ from him three months ago. He made a phone call to say he'd got the contract with SHIELD, and...' she swallowed. 'We never heard from him since.'

'What, really?' Jane looked concerned. 'That bad?' She looked back towards the road, fingers tightening on the steering wheel. 'Only...we've been getting a little worried, too.'

'But aren't you working with him?'

'Were. _Were _working with him. We're still out at our old place in Puente Antiguo.' Jane said tightly. 'I mean, we work on the base when we're needed, but Erik got moved.' She hesitated. 'To Level Three.'

Darcy made a slight, squeaky noise from the back seat, still shuffled into her woollen hat.

'Level Three?' Anneka stared. Jane had pronounced 'Level Three' in the way frightened villagers usually mentioned 'the moors' in cheap werewolf movies. 'What's so bad about Level Three?'

'A couple of security guys had nervous breakdowns working there,' Darcy added, her voice low. 'We didn't want anything bad to happen to your dad. It's just...he doesn't come out to see us any more. We haven't seen him in weeks.'

Anneka swallowed. 'I did... hear from him,' she said quietly, fumbling in one pocket of her coat. 'Actually. He emailed me...'

She wordlessly passed the printed scrap of paper over. Jane stared at it

'HJELPK ME PLEASDFE.'

'Is that Swedish for something?' Darcy looked excited, peering eagerly over Jane's shoulder from the back seat.

'It's a typo, Darcy,' Jane snapped. 'He _meant_ to write "help me."'

'Oh_._' Darcy looked crestfallen.

'It's why I took the job,' Anneka said, staring at the printout. It felt good to be able to say the _real_ reason why she took the job. Jane Foster seemed reassuringly straightforward and helpful. 'To find out what happened to him.'

'That's _why_ you're here?' Darcy looked at her strangely. 'So your dad never told you any of the _stuff_?'

'The _what_?'

'The stuff!' Darcy said, attempting to wink significantly. The shapeless knitted hat fell askew over one eye. 'You know... the ...stuff? The Norse god _stuff_?'

'Oh, that,' Anneka said, relaxing. 'I found _that_ out in the interview. They showed me a photo.'

'They did?' Even Jane's voice sounded odd now. 'Really?'

'Well, the circle's very inpressive,' Anneka said, hoping to sound impressively informed. 'I'm supposed to translate the runes for them, since it's clearly a sacred site. And to examine the carvings for any significant details. It _looked_ pretty spectacular,' she added. 'Have they any idea what it _is_ yet?'

An odd silence suddenly fell in the car.

'Ceremonial,' Jane said, at last, as though struggling to keep a calm countenance. She looked oddly sad – and at the same time a little strained. 'Yeah... I'm going to say it was probably ceremonial...'

'Oh! So definitely religious, then?' Anneka asked eagerly. Damn, her notebook was in her other bag. She wouldn't be able to jot down anything until she could unpack. But she could certainly keep a mental note. 'I mean, I want to be up-to date if I'm starting on Monday...' her voice trailed off.

_Pappa_. She was forgetting what was important. She had to keep focused.

'Can you _see_ my dad at the base?' she asked, suddenly. 'On Level Three?'

Jane held up a plastic keycard on a thin lanyard around her neck. 'I've only got clearance for the lab rooms on Level One and satellite access. Sorry. But since you're here, I think they _might_ let you in as a visitor. You're family, after all.' Had Anneka been less pre-occupied, she might have noticed Jane seemed almost _glad_ to change the subject away from Norse mythology.

'Yeah!' Darcy interjected, gently punching Anneka's arm. 'That's why we came. We wanted to make sure your dad was safe...' she looked apologetic. 'M'sorry I didn't say before. Jane's better at this than I am. But we're your... _infiltration_ team. Getting you in.' She looked delighted at her own word. 'Hey, that sounds great! Can we call ourselves that? The _Infiltrators_...' She mimed an action pose. 'Filtrating action included!'

Anneka laughed properly, for the first time in weeks. She didn't have to pretend, or tell comforting lies to hide what she'd done from her mother. She wasn't dodging the truth, or being evasive. Both Jane and Darcy seemed worried too – and, better yet, they were prepared to help her. It was a _good_ feeling.

And there was still a long drive to go before they reached Puente Antiguo. Anneka decided to be sociable.

'So – you know why I'm here,' she said, smiling. 'How did you end up working for S.H.I.E.L.D?'

'Well-'

Amidst the friendly ping-pong game of casual conversation, Anneka picked up a few things. Darcy hadn't so much joined as vaguely trotted along from her east coast university, after the somewhat hazy 'event' of the previous summer. Her grades had been 'arranged' for the next few years if she kept working with Jane, which for an uncertain Political Science major was like winning some sort of universal lottery. And she'd almost paid off her college fees already with her salary. Clearly S.H.I.E.L.D believed in keeping its employees motivated. The only thing Darcy _really_ missed was better access to vintage clothing stores. And missing out on her favourite TV shows.

'I keep on ordering them on DVD when they come out!' she said cheerily, grinning at Anneka. 'Ohmigosh, do you wanna do a marathon some time? Only I've totally got this great five season box-set of-'

'Yeah, you might want to watch out for Darcy,' Jane said, smiling quietly as the 'political science' student burbled happily away to herself in the back seat. 'She'll have you gagged and watching _Desperate Housewives_ with her before the week is out. I think she gets bored with the waiting.'

'Is there a lot of waiting?' Anneka asked sympathetically. She knew how jittery her own father got with findings when he was running strings of data through his programs.

Jane drew in a breath, as though tempted to say something. 'For some things.' She said, at last, looking away. 'But, research – God, we've _plenty_ still to do before we're anywhere near understanding anything...' she sighed, slightly. 'I expect it's the same with your subject?'

'Oh, _yes_!' Anneka agreed, fervently. 'I mean -it doesn't matter how many books you read, or the digs, or the journals...' she shrugged inside her anorak, eyes momentarily somewhere else. Jane wondered if she was trying to look back into the past. 'The world – the world's this big ball of terrifying darkness and violence that you have to try and understand through _stories_...' Anneka made a widespread gesture with her hands, eyes shining. 'And your gods are like you, you know? They're stupid and petty and vicious but they're also courageous and brave, and clever when they need to be. They're _you, _magnified ten times into the things you want to be. I don't think anyone ever really thinks how much we all depend on stories, really.' Anneka trailed off, thinking of her own, comforting fiction of finding Pappa, bringing him home. 'Gods or just – I don't know... eating your vegetables.'

'Huh. Well, it sounds like you're studying the right subject,' Jane cast a curiously wistful sideways glance at Anneka. 'You know a lot? About Norse... gods?'

Anneka flushed, slightly ashamed at her puppyish enthusiasm – but only slightly. Jane seemed genuinely interested.

'Well – from the stories,' she said, growing more confident. 'It's Pappa's fault, really – he used to bring home old books when the library used to sell off its old stuff. He brought me this gorgeous old book called _Tales of the Norse Gods and Heroes_ that had illustrations by Arthur Rackham...' she sighed happily, thinking of the book stowed in her rucksack. 'You could see them, down on the page, the way you imagined them! Odin and Thor and Balder and - I can show you some time, if you'd like,' she said hastily, aware she'd been rambling.

But Jane nodded, the wistful look still clouding her face. 'I'd like that.'

She looked into the rear view mirror, staring at the puffs of red dust that the speeding car left in its wake. They were getting closer now. In the distance there were tall mesh fences, crowned with a bristling tangle of barbed wire. Squat concrete checkpoints sat stubbornly at either side of the entrance, as though daring anyone to dash past. As new workplaces went, the Puente Antiguo S.H.I.E.L.D base was probably one of the more intimidating. The guards had _guns._

Guns for Anneka had always been props in action movies, or small holsters jogging comfortably at a policeman's hip - not large automatics being clutched with worrying professionalism. Anneka found herself shrinking back into her seat, instinctively trying to make herself smaller.

'S'okay, you know,' Darcy's voice said from the shadows of the back seat. She leant forward, looking encouragingly at Anneka's suddenly pale face. 'I was scared my first time too. You get used to it after a few weeks.'

Anneka seriously doubted _that. _ But she gave a watery smile towards the security men as Jane coolly wound down the window to flash her security pass at them.

'Foster,' she said briefly. 'Here to see Dr Selvig?' She jerked a thumb towards Anneka, clutching her bag like a gauche schoolgirl in the passenger seat. 'I just picked his daughter up from the airport.'

One of the black-clad security men squinted up at the pass, carefully. 'We haven't got any requests for guest passes for Level Three,' he said, in a voice tinged with suspicion. 'You _sure_ about this, ma'am?'

Jane rolled her eyes theatrically. 'Oh, _come on_, Samson. Give the poor kid a break? She only just got here from a flight halfway across the world! Of _course_ her dad wasn't expecting her so soon. Are you really going to stick to protocol for this one-'

'Dr Selvig works on Level Three, Miss Foster. You know the rules. It's as much as my job's worth letting you wander round there unescorted...'

'Who said anything about unescorted? If you'd _just_-' Jane sounded frustrated.

Anneka looked about in embarrassment, casting an idle look towards the sentrybox -

And something behind the windows _flickered_.

She blinked, eyes watering. The movement had been lightning-fast; so fleeting it could have just been the sunlight, catching the glass. But...the day was overcast and cloudy. It had been from the moment Anneka had landed. There _was_ no sun.

And sunlight didn't make sharp, jerking movements, as though someone had just shifted out of sight.

Was there someone in there, watching them? She leaned forward in her seat.

Behind Anneka, the argument seemed to be finally drawing to a close.

'...Listen, Miss Foster, if I let you in there, it's me who'll have to answer for it.' The security man sounded to be making a grudging concession. 'I'll have to escort you, okay? No wandering around, and no trying to get access to the labs like _last_ time...'

Jane looked blatantly unrepentant.

'Well, you _did_ have parts of a linear particle accelerator in there...' she sighed. 'Not today, I promise. I just want to see Erik.'

Samson let out a puff of breath, defeated. 'All right – but you don't pull this _again_. Next time, you get a proper visitor's pass and run it by the right people.' He turned, shifting his gun slightly. 'I'll walk you in. _This_ once.'

Jane grinned in triumph. 'You've got it.' She turned. 'Anneka, we did it! We're in!'

Anneka turned her gaze away from the sentry box. Aside from a fan sitting idly on a window-shelf and a row of spare coats hanging on hooks, it was completely empty.

'I..._guess_,' she said, turning a disconcerted glance back towards the vacant windows. She could have sworn she'd seen someone...

As the car pulled forward, something _slid _back over the glass, nudging itself swiftly out of sight – into the rainbow reflection cast by a spilt puddle of engine oil, caught momentarily in the metallic shine of the car paint – and then out again into the nearby reflection of a sliding glass door.

The SH.I.E.L.D security men weren't the only people who carefully examined the comings and goings of visitors to Level Three.

* * *

><p>Level Three was below ground level, and smelt strongly of acrid cleaning fluid and the sharp tang of new plastic. It felt almost too <em>sterilised<em> to walk through. The new-laid grey plastic tiles, the hum of electricity behind the featureless beige walls – it was like walking through some strange deserted hospital, Anneka thought, and with much the same barbed edge of uncertainty. There was nothing but endless doors on either side of the downward twisting corridor; and brief, bizarre glimpses of activity through the glass viewing windows. Something crackling, electric blue, in a room that looked more like a hanger for aircraft than a laboratory. Four or five masked, lab-coated assistants scurrying around a huge computer console that looked vaguely like some sort of Doomsday machine. Jane lingered by _that_ window longingly for a split second - before sighing, and catching up with the rest of the group.

'The equipment they have _here_...'she murmured under breath.

'On Level Three?' Darcy hissed at her. 'You really want to work here?'

Jane sobered almost instantly. 'No.'

Their motley group had to keep up after that. As they went further into Level Three, they had to pass a series of forbidding electric doors that only their uneasy security guide could open with a series of complicated pass codes.

There were no more viewing windows here. You had to _wonder_, Anneka thought with a twinge of discomfort. If the huge experimental areas were in the less secure part of Level Three – what were they keeping _here?_ And Pappa was down here?

As though by unspoken agreement, they were all walking close together, packed tight into a defensive huddle. Darcy seemed to have vanished into her woolly hat, shoulders curled inwards as though making herself as small as possible. Even Jane, who had eagerly pounced at the chance to explore before, now walked close behind.

But they eventually left that hostile world of locked doors and passcodes through another glass door - into what was clearly intended to be a cheerful set of living quarters. There was a drinks machine set against one wall, casting a blood-coloured glow against the white paint, and a haphazard collection of sagging brown leather sofas that smelt strongly of stale beer and fluff.

It was a sight to make the strongest constitution break down and weep. Somehow corporate attempts at bland 'cheerful living space' seemed to result in something close to a moulded plastic maze for hamsters.

'Urgh,' Darcy said, attempting to run a finger over a rickety coffee table. She tugged her hand away with a visible effort. The accumulation of spilt drinks had formed an unpleasant glue. 'SHIELD makes people _live_ here? Like, of their own free will?'

'You should see _our_ rec room some time,' Samson grunted. 'Make this quick, ladies. Okay? Selvig's rooms are up that way. You make sure he's okay, you say hi, I walk you out – you don't try this unofficially _ever_ again.'

Anneka set off at a trot, trying desperately not to break into a run down the corridor. There, at the end, was a door - with the unobtrusive nameplate of 'Doctor Erik Selvig' marked on it, and the reassuring flicker of a desk lamp shining from beneath the door.

Anneka knocked briskly, relief flooding her bones. What a fool she'd been to worry about this! The old comforting lie ran through her head again – that she'd travelled across the world, and all for some high-tech red-tape that meant Pappa couldn't call–

There was a sound of papers shifting, as though someone had moved inside the room.

But then there was dead silence. No one hurried over to answer the door.

Anneka exchanged a worried look with Jane, before raising her fist to knock again.

'Erik?' Jane raised her voice, through the door. 'Hey, Erik? You can answer the door! It's me! You've got a visitor I'm sure you'd love to see...'

Only the silence answered. It went on for too long. It let doubt come flooding back into Anneka's mind – the email HJELPK_ ME PLEASDFE_, all the little telltale signs that things _weren't_ normal...

'Is he lying on the floor pretending we're not in?' Jane pounded more vigorously. 'Hey! Erik! We're not Jehovah's Witnesses! It's _us_! Open the damn door!'

Something shifted, once again, within the room – slow footsteps. But since when had Pappa developed that ponderous stumbling old man shuffle? The feet inside the room sounded faltering and uncertain.

'Jane?' a quavering voice said weakly. 'Is that...you?'

The look of exasperation on Jane's face had deepened into one of deep concern. 'Erik, what have you been _doing_ to yourself in there?'

'I...' the footsteps dragged themselves closer, becoming more firm. 'M'glad... t-to see you, Jane...'

The door opened, almost furtively, as the fetid smell of a close-shuttered room leaked out.

Jane reeled back. But Anneka leapt forward, hands clapped over her mouth in horror.

'_Pappa?'_

Her father was unshaven, and stank. He reeled and shivered like a drunkard in the doorway, hands trembling so much on the doorknob that it rattled perpetually. He was not so much Pappa as some bloated, unfamiliar caricature of him – a zombie-Pappa, if you like. But what made it _worse_ was the way he blankly stared at Anneka behind Jane's shoulder and asked, child-like , 'Who's that?'

* * *

><p>Everyone froze. Even Agent Samson, who had taken a step forward on registering Selvig's decrepit appearance. Jane waved him back, silently.<p>

'Erik,' she said gently. 'Don't you remember? This is your _daughter._ You remember Anneka? From back in Sweden. She's come all the way to see you. Agent Coulson spoke to you about it. Remember?' Jane was coaxing him gently along as though he were a child.

'He did?' Selvig repeated, dreamily. He once again passed that strange uncomprehending look over the group. 'I don't remember – the work, y-you see...' she gestured vaguely back into the room, and then reeled unsteadily in the doorway.

Both Anneka and Jane started forward in the same instant. But his forgotten daughter reached him first. 'He's _my_ father!' she said fiercely. She looked upwards into that slack unrecognising face, one hand on his sleeve. 'Pappa – Pappa, p-please – don't you remember? You sent me an email! You needed help, Pappa, you said! You _said! _You were in t-trouble – 'Anneka was almost sobbing the words out. 'What happened? Why didn't you call us -'

An unfamiliar synapse flared behind Selvig's empty eyes. He suddenly stumbled forward, hands clutching the lapels of Anneka's coat.

'It's the work!' he hissed. 'It's alive, I think – _He_ won't let me leave. _He _keeps following me around. I can't sleep unless _He_ lets me, I can't stop, I can't _think...' _He shook his head. 'It might get me now, you know. It watches me. In the dark. _He_ can see everything.'

'Sir-' Agent Samson laid a hand on Selvig's shoulder. 'Listen, you're not well... He turned. 'Medical should know what to do with him-'

A fatal error. Samson should not have taken his eyes off Selvig. The physicist turned a wild, red-eyed glance around the room and lashed out wildly, knocking the security man back and pushing Anneka sharply against the wall.

'I won't let you take me,' he said, almost conversationally. 'I can't. _He_'ll punish me again, you know. _He's_ only gone for a little while, and there's so much work _He_ wants... so much...'

Anneka tried to struggle away from those horrible clutching hands. Hands that didn't recognise her.

'Get off,' she said, in a low voice. 'Pappa, get off...'

Perhaps it was the sound of fear in his daughter's voice. At least for a moment, recognition returned to Selvig's eyes. He let go, dazed. '_A-Anneka?_ What are you doing _here_!' He shook his head, fiercely, backing away from her pale scared face. 'Go away. You shouldn't have come. I can't be sure _He's _not watching me.'

Agent Samson hadn't tried to approach Selvig again. He was circling the corridor exit, muttering something into his radioset.

'...Looks like Jim Towser all over again – repeat, urgently need back up and medical team right away. _Yes_, Level Three.'

'Who?' Anneka said quietly, one hand outstretched to her father, as though to a frightened animal. Selvig's eyes roamed everywhere – the floor, the walls, even darting nervous looks back at his rooms – anywhere but at her. 'Who's watching you?'

Selvig let loose a feeble hoot of laughter.

'They wouldn't believe me if I tried to tell them,' he said, hands shaking again. 'No-one would... Besides, it's not as though they could catch _Him_. _He_'s everywhere...'

'Yeah, sounds like religious mania to me...'

Darcy rounded on the agent furiously from her rooted spot in the corridor, batting at him with one mittened hand. 'Will you shut the hell up!'

Jane pulled both Darcy and the agent back, throwing a worried glance over her shoulder at Anneka's set, pale face.

'Who's '_He_,' Pappa?' Anneka repeated quietly, fists clenching to hold in her panic at _this. _Of all the terrible tragic scenarios she had conjured up before, _this_ she hadn't expected.

One light-headed, wildly inappropriate part of her brain found a horrible humour in it. Pappa had become a "mad" mad scientist. Hahaha...

The rest of her brain hated herself for being the first to say it. The 'M' word.

'_He..._?' Selvig said slowly, blinking, slowly raising his head to look at Anneka.

And then he screamed, falling to his knees.

It was so unexpected that Jane and Darcy drew back, Darcy clapping her hands over her ears at the harsh noise. It's wasn't like a man's shout. Selvig's cry was the shrill scream of an animal in blinding pain.

'I knew _He'd_ be here,' he choked. 'I knew it! Oh _Gud_, I...' He pointed, trembling at the stolid plastic drinks machine in front of him. '_He_'ll punish me, _He_ will!

'Okay, that's enough,' Samson said brusquely. The reassurance of back-up had made him confident again. 'Miss, if you'd step away from your father please? Miss?'

'He won't hurt me!' Anneka said angrily. 'He's my dad –'

And it was then that Anneka _saw._

That same subtle flicker of movement she had caught at the sentrybox outside – only this time, sliding in and out of focus across the brightly coloured drink advert, as though a shadow was trapped behind the glass. It was strangely hazy, around the edges – a little like looking at the horizon through a summer's heat haze. The way the surface _rippled_ was exactly like that. But summer heat hazes don't melt into the size and shape of a human...

Pappa was staring at it, horror frozen across his face.

'You see?' he whispered. 'I told you..._He'_s everywhere...' He tugged feebly on Anneka's slackened fingers. 'A demon, I think... A... no, wait, he is..._svarthofdi. Svarthofdi, _Anneka!_'_

The strange word made Anneka look sharply down, startled. It wasn't something Pappa would normally use, sane or mad. It was an old word from the murky depths of her studies. Not something a middle-aged physicist would say so desperately, as Pappa did.

Anneka blinked, eyes watering –

And the shadow was gone.


	5. Of Mothers and Sons

_O, this is the poison of deep grief!_

_When sorrows come, they come not single spies,_

_But in battalions...your son gone, and he most violent author_

_Of his own just remove; the people muddied,_

_Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers..._

**Hamlet**

It is perhaps a remarkable thing that, of all the Nine Realms and their many varied beasts of burden, the great realm of Asgard houses only twelve horses. Twelve stamping, magnificent creatures with rolling eyes and proud flaring nostrils; each with a powerful name of their own.

Glad, Gyllir, Falhofnir and Skeidbrimir, Silfrtopp, Sinir and Lettfeti... Even their names suggested their grandeur. They were, it was true, few in number; but then they were truly horses for gods.

This is because the horses of Asgard are not truly horses at all. Oh, they are real enough _where_ it matters to a rider. They have all the varied (and often foul) tempers a mortal horse has, and are much the same in matter of mane and teeth and trampling hooves. But there is a strange glitter about the steeds of the Aesir, when the sunlight strikes them. It reveals the strange, shadowy golden sheen of rune marks amongst their glossy coats and solid flesh.

Magical constructs. All of them. No more real than the Destroyer; each a vessel of blood magic and bone magic - but each with a peculiar life-force of their own that hovered halfway between magic and a peculiar half-life of their own.

Each and every one of them had their stables in the vast echoing halls of Odin. It was a tremendous place, built out of stamped bronze that seemed to reflect the glossy sheen of the horses' coats.

Thor had always distrusted them, as a rule. Firstly, because they were of a different province to his own powers, and they had a disturbing, crackling tension to them that made him uncomfortable because it was so alien, so _different. _But he had avoided the stables more than usual since his return. At least until now.

It was because he knew the temptation. It was a terrible thing, to stand in the doorway, staring at all those arching necks and stamping feet – and knowing that one – just _one – _would be enough to carry him to Earth. It wouldn't even have to be a _long_ journey, or a protracted stay on Midgard. Earth seemed to have warriors enough of its own – of a peculiar sort. He could simply _warn_ them of Jötunnheim, carry Jane off in triumph, and...

No, Thor realized, kicking gloomily at the scattered straw on the floor. No, he couldn't.

Earth had no defences at all against the sort of power Jötunnheim and Byleistr seemed so eager to inflict. It was the action of a selfish boor, and he briefly hated himself for thinking it. Especially since it was not only _Jane_ who was in danger. Her kindly handmaid Darcy, the scholar Selvig... to leave them to their fate on Midgard in exchange for personal happiness was not something Thor could easily square with his conscience.

Midgard was a _better_ world, in so many ways. None of the troubles that afflicted Asgard had yet come to light there; the mortals followed their own path, blissfully ignorant of the other realms that circled them - and there were a few, like Jane, who looked up at the stars and wondered. And they were free to wonder. No duties by birthright, or weighty destinies. It was something Thor found hard to admit to himself, but his exile had, in many ways, been a weight lifted from his shoulders. Perhaps his father was right. Perhaps his desire to return to Earth was not entirely chivalrous, after all.

But it was _wrong_ to leave them ignorant. It was _worse_ to know they, along with all of Earth, had been bartered away, false promise or no.

Thor's fingers twitched, looking along the wall of tethered horses in their stalls, his mind half-made up. It was clearly his duty to Jane (and to Midgard, yes) to go. He would have to take one.

But which one?

Sleipneir was out of the question. He was powerful enough to cross the Nine Realms without pausing for breath, yes, but he only bore the All-Father willingly. Besides, it would be outright insult to take (Thor's thoughts skirted guiltily around the word _steal) _his father's horse. Glad, despite his name, was ill-tempered and bit far more of his riders than any sorcerous construct had a right to. And many of the newer constructs were not built to withstand a journey to such a distant realm as Earth. The only possible choice was a grave-eyed piebald mare of his mother's who Thor knew of old– and indeed, Thor had a fondness for her, having fallen many times from her back as a child learning to ride. She was somewhat erroneously named Hofvarpnir - Hoof-Kicker, although for her speed rather than for her placid temper. But she was old, and at least as powerful as Sleipneir. His mother used her to bear messages to other realms...

Thor had unconsciously stepped forward, one hand outstretched to Hofvarpnir in a calming gesture – perhaps more for himself than the horse. Deceit did not sit well upon Thor. But it was _not_ wrong, Thor told himself sharply. It was _right_. And it was only himself he was endangering this time, after all. He had not embroiled his friends, though Volstagg and the others would probably have Hel for him had he suggested it. But he'd only risk _himself_. What fault could anyone find with that?

Hofvarpnir's bridle and saddle lay carelessly slung over the wall of her stall. So close to hand! It would only be the work of a moment to saddle her and ride hard for the stars...

Thor patted the mare's muzzle distractedly, eyes still flickering longingly towards the discarded saddle. Hofvarpnir whinnied softly, large dark eyes fixed enquiringly on his face. It was far too intelligent a gaze for a simple horse.

'Na, na, girl,' Thor said soothingly, 'There. Hush.' He groped blindly for the saddle on the wooden wall.

'_Good_ girl –'

'My lord!'

Thor started angrily, jumping away from Hofvarpnir as though stung. '_What_?' he snapped. 'What, are we under attack? _Are_ the Jötunns scaling our walls? What is so _urgent_?'

The saffron cloaked figure of a guard stood outlined in the doorway, looking horrified at his blunder. 'N-no, my lord,' he stammered, abashed. 'I meant no offence, only - '

'Only _what_?' Thor's temper was still simmering.

'Heimdall, my lord. The watchman. He... he-' the guard swallowed, 'Asks for your presence at the Bifrost.'

'Is that _all_? He has no _business_-' Thor turned his fair head away, staring broodingly at the horses again. 'He interrupts me. I was about to ride... north. Yes, north. To patrol our borders.'

He was tempted to ignore the summons. But Heimdall... He had not thought of Heimdall! He would have _seen!_ He would _know_...

Thor sighed, despondently. 'Very well.' He said, reluctantly. 'If Heimdall wishes it.'

* * *

><p>The shattered remains of the Bifrost jutted out, precariously looming over the edge of the world. It looked almost as frail as spun-sugar outlined against the darkness, the glowing colours of the rainbow bridge oddly faded now there was no gate, and no power.<p>

It had been left as it was. Once, his father would have at once commanded the builders of Asgard to start work at once – but Odin had rather tiredly remarked that perhaps it was better as it was, and so left it, and his gatekeeper, without a gate to guard.

Heimdall still kept constant watch at the broken edge of the Bifrost. He was not hard to find – unfortunately for Thor's guilty conscience. He was too painfully aware of what Heimdall had no doubt seen; a contemplated theft by the All-Father's heir. Treachery.

'I was about to ride _north_,' he said defensively. 'Our walls to the north must be gauged, and there is much work-'

'Indeed?' Heimdall said politely, without turning from his post. He was simply a gilded back to Thor, staring thoughtfully out at the skies. 'It was _Asgard_ you sought to protect, then?'

'I...' Thor's shoulders sagged. It was pointless to attempt concealment with Heimdall.

'You saw me,'he said. 'You _know_. Yes, I thought of leaving Asgard for Earth, with the All-Father's permission or without it. I cannot stand idly by while he delays so long! I have a duty – I...' he trailed off, defeated. 'I _want_ to help them. I am not content to simply keep Asgard safe.'

'I know.' Heimdall turned his golden eyes away from the stars. 'And were it any other time, and the power in my hands, I would have opened the passage to Midgard for you myself.'

Thor looked visibly startled. Heimdall had always been his father's sworn bondsman. A less forbidding figure of authority than his father, granted, but still master of a thousand scoldings; a slighter figure of paternal disapproval, as it were. To hear Heimdall express even the slightest disagreement with the commands of the All-Father was like watching a man box with his own shadow – faintly unnerving.

'You _would_?'

'Yes.' Heimdall looked faintly amused at Thor's obvious astonishment. 'But not today. I understand your fears,' he added kindly, holding up a hand as Thor opened his mouth to argue anew. 'You are right about Earth. There are clouds coming; black clouds. And I fear it will engulf all the Nine Realms in the storm of war. '

'And Earth will be the first to suffer!' Thor burst out angrily.

'I do not pretend to understand my king's plans. But I do not think the All-Father would let that happen. And you would be _wrong_ to flee to Earth unbidden now. You would wound both your father and the kingdom too deeply.'

Thor breathed hard, the bitter disappointment showing plain upon his face. 'But...'

'_Wait_ a little longer.' Heimdall turned his gaze sharply towards the distant golden outline of Asgard, those faraway pupils widening. 'For now. Asgard needs you, Thor Odinsson. All is not well here.'

Thor looked back towards his father's halls. 'What do you see?'

Heimdall shook his helmeted head. 'I do not speak the secrets of the All-Father.' He said firmly, although his expression was distinctly uneasy. 'But... all is not well. And the All-Father will tell you soon enough, I am sure...'

* * *

><p>'You do <em>not<em> mean to tell him!'

There are few men in the world who have ever witnessed the anger of a queen of Asgard – and it was very rare to see the Lady Frigga in anything but a kindly mood. But when she grew angry, her rage was not a hot-tempered one; it was a cold blast of withering contempt. And she aimed it towards her husband with all the acid derision she could summon.

'_So,_' she said, turning upon her chair, 'He asked you at last – as it is _natural_ he would -and what do you, great lord of the Aesir, do? You shy away from it like a tongue-tied fool! You say it is nothing, foolishness – and you _still _withhold the truth from him, when you should be holding counsel with him, helping him to _understand_-' She broke off. 'Why do I even argue? What use is it? You take your own advice, and no-one else's.'

'Frigga-'

'No!' The All-Father's wife rose, the dark gold of her hair blazing. 'I prided myself once on being able to keep your secrets in silence, my husband. No more.'

Odin stood, shoulders hunched, in the flickering firelight from his wife's hearth, looking almost as old as he had before the Odinsleep. There was a time when you would often have found the All-Father in his wife's chambers, holding joint counsel as beloved husband and wife – an aging king and his gracious queen holding a dignified, measured court. But not of late. Frigga had been inconsolable for a long while, taking comfort only in her warrior son's presence and her own duties. And a strained distance had grown, in that little time, between the All-Father and his wife. She no longer shared his rooms, preferring her own hall of Fensalir - a place she had not occupied since she was a maiden scarcely betrothed. What she did there none had the courage to ask, not even her brave-browed son or her sad-eyed husband. Lady Frigga had become... distant. And Odin, master of a thousand powers, could do nothing to change that.

'What would you have me do?' he asked tiredly, cradling his shaggy head upon one hand. 'Frigga-'

'Do not use that begging voice with me,' his lady-wife snapped, with sudden violence. 'I will not be cozened by – by words! Thor _must_ know. He should have known from the beginning, but I was weak, and...' she looked down at her hands, convulsively twisting a loose thread in her kirtle over and over – and, for the first time since the breaking of the Bifrost, Odin saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes.

'We had such hopes, didn't we?' she said, in a subdued voice. 'Once. It all looked so bright, so promising...Do you remember? War with Jötunnheim was something we would have laughed at, back when -'

'We could not have foreseen things would have turned out so,' Odin said gently. For one moment Frigga swayed, made as though to lean her head against his shoulder – but as he moved towards her she suddenly tensed, leaning back as though he disgusted her.

'Don't **touch** me!' she said in a savage whisper. 'Don't!'

The dismay and open hurt on her husband's face seemed to simply make her withdraw back into her stony shell.

'Tell Thor,' she said coldly. 'Go and tell him, else I renounce my place as your wife. And when you have done **that**, go and make or break your plans for war as you like. That seems to be work - for _men_.'

She fixed her gaze on the fire, until only the gentle noise of her chamber door closing told her that she was alone. It was only then that she allowed herself a few tears. Frigga could not afford to relent in front of her husband – or her son, though she loved him with a fond ache only a mother could know. But if she weakened _now_ –

She wouldn't have the strength for what she planned to do.

'Fulla?' she called.

A grave-eyed woman with her hair bound in a veil hurried forward across the echoing hall. 'My lady?'

'Bring my casket of ash. And my scrying glass.'

Fulla stopped dead, her eyes fixed on her mistress' face. 'Again? My lady – you know what the sight cost you last time. Gazing so far without the aid of the Bifrost– it will take its toll. You _know_ it will.'

Frigga rocked back and forth intently as she stared into the fire, not hearing a word. 'I _must_ know, Fulla.' She said, fiercely. 'I _will_ find Loki out, if I have to scry every inch of the universe to find him...'

Fulla stared at her mistress, pity and a wary concern mingling in her face. She had grown old in the Lady Frigga's service; and she knew a dangerous mood when she saw one.

'What if you cannot find him?' she said, very softly. 'My lady – the All-Father searched long and hard. He gave up the search as useless. All of Asgard has mourned his passing as befits the – the son of a king...'

There was a faint edge in Fulla's voice that suggested much grief was somewhat uncalled for, in this particular prince's case. 'Would it not be better – no, perhaps...kinder to-'

'To _what_? Give up, as my husband has done? _No_!' Frigga's voice was steely. 'I don't ask your advice, Fulla.' She snatched the rough-hewn ash box from Fulla's hands. It was a small thing, but it was heavy, and it rattled as she took it. 'Besides,' she continued distractedly, toying with a strand of greying gold hair. 'I do not think him dead.'

He would be _better _dead, Fulla thought silently to herself. Dead, one could have a little charity for Loki, But Frigga had always had a strange, fearful idolatry for her foundling. Fulla had never quite understood it. Still._ Alive_ was another problem altogether.

'Why?' she persisted, staring her mistress in the face. 'Lady – even the abyss would kill a frost-giant outright before he could even _touch_ a realm...'

Frigga bent over the polished reflection of the glass in her lap. 'Oh, he may be Laufey's son, to be sure,' she said, strangely. 'But he is also his - his _mother_'s son. He is resourceful. There will be a way...'

Fulla gave up the struggle against Frigga's feverish insistence. But as she withdrew, leaving her mistress the tools of her scrying magic, she could not help but bite her lip worriedly.

Heimdall was right. All was far from well in Asgard.

* * *

><p>'This wasn't how this was supposed to go,' Jane said forlornly, jingling her car keys in her pocket as she leant against the wall. 'Your first day. It shouldn't have been like this.'<p>

'No-one's first day should be like this,' Darcy said hollowly. 'Jeez...'

When the medical team – four strong, burly men - had arrived, Doctor Selvig had certainly not gone quietly, or calmly. They'd had to sedate him before they could even carry him up to the ward. And even then he'd lain trussed on his stretcher still tossing and turning, muttering about 'Him.'

Jane and Darcy hadn't left Anneka's side since. She couldn't help but be grateful. If it had just been her, on her own...

Anneka stared down at her styrofoam cup of juice. She'd been given it by a kindly receptionist in the medical bay. It was a horrible , chemical sort of orange squash, the industrial strength- stuff so beloved of hospitals and official institutions. It tasted rather how she felt.

And she didn't want to think about how she'd have coped on her own. With Pappa.

She sipped her drink mechanically, staring down at her battered sneakers. It was something to do, after all. Rather than think.

'I had no idea it was this bad...'Jane breathed. She looked horribly guilt-stricken. 'Look, Anneka – you have every right to hold me responsible for not checking up on your dad, and I'll understand if you never speak to me again – but I honestly didn't...' she trailed off.

Anneka blinked slightly. 'I don't blame you,' she said numbly, looking across the hall towards father's door. It seemed stupid, thinking about that now. Anneka was _his_ daughter, after all, and _she_ hadn't known.

And-

Tears suddenly prickled in Anneka's eyes. In her haste to put the cup down she spilt chemical orange over her shoes. Mamma. She'd forgotten her mother. And Birtta, hiccupping tearfully down the phone, waiting for a call that would never come because Pappa had been –

'Anneka? What's wrong?'

'My mother-' Anneka blurted out. 'I should _call_-' she shook her head. '_Gud_, I don't know what to say to her...'

'Don't worry about it,' Jane said gently, squeezing her shoulder. 'I'll call her.'

'No, but-'

'You're in no condition to explain anything to _anyone_ – let alone telling your mom about something like this. Come on. I'll call.' Jane said, with an unexpected firmness that made Anneka see the physics professor in her. 'She'd rather know you're with him, I'm sure. I'll just tell her-'

'We don't even know what's wrong with him, yet. He just-' Anneka shivered. 'He wasn't Pappa. It was like he was drugged, or...' Something tugged at her memory. Something Agent Samson had said.

'What happened to Jim Towser?' she asked, suddenly.

Jane started. 'What?'

'Jim Towser.' Anneka repeated patiently. '"It's like Jim Towser all over again." That's was the security man said. _Wha_t's like Jim Towser?'

'_Oh_.' Darcy, in the corner, shook her head, 'That's _nothing_ like what happened here. Jim Towser – well, he was another security guy, y'know? The guy had been all over the place with SHIELD. Hot-spots you didn't want to know about. Apparently it was some delayed mental break-down...'

Jane stared at her protégé incredulously. 'Darcy, how do you even _know_ all this?'

'Hey, I share pizza delivery with the duty guard! He tells me stuff!'

'Mental breakdown?' Anneka said sharply. 'Like...'she swallowed. 'Pappa?'

'No way! Apparently he shot up a window or something! Went totally off-the-wall crazy, talking about weird eyes...'

'Watching him all the time? "Him"? '

'Well, yeah –wait, no!' Darcy looked agonised as Jane threw her a furious look. 'I didn't mean it to sound like that...'

'I think you've done enough, Darcy,' Jane said pointedly.

Anneka was staring uneasily into the surface of her chemical orange drink. The odd shadow on the drinks machine was still preying on her mind. It had appeared _just_ when Pappa had been so frightened...Coincidence?

She shrugged, huddling defensively into her jacket

'I'll bet Jim Towser didn't mention anything about _svarthofdi_, though,' she said, trying to keep the shake out of her voice. 'I mean – it's funny that Pappa should say that, really. It's not Swedish.'

'Wait, what? I thought that was-' Jane sounded confused.

'Nah.' Anneka drained her squash, crumpling the plastic cup up in one hand. 'It's Old Norse. I didn't even know he _knew_ that word...'

Once again, there was another strange silence between Jane and Darcy. They exchanged furtive glances, over Anneka's tousled head.

'What does it mean?' Jane asked.

'_Svarthofdi_? It means sorcerer. Magic-maker, runeweaver... ' Anneka swallowed, inwardly a little surprised at how calm her voice sounded. 'There's a few translations. _Vilmeid_'s another one – although that's wizards, they're not quite as powerful-'

She stopped. Why? Why would Pappa say it so often? As though it was _important_...

'He must have been delirious,' Darcy said comfortingly. 'He's been doing some pretty heavy research at the site, you know? I think maybe he's just hit the books too hard and come down with um- a fever, or something... I mean, they fixed Jim Towser just fine, once they gave him the anti-psychotic meds...'

'I'll go and call your mom,' Jane said firmly, darting another thin-lipped glance of annoyance at Darcy. 'Tell her not to worry – _you_ shouldn't, either. The doctors here will call if there's any change. They will!' Anneka had opened her mouth to protest. 'They're a decent team here.'

'They are?'

'I've known a _lot_ of doctors, believe me.' Jane said grimly. 'The guys here are good. Now _you_ - you should go find your rooms and get some rest. It'll look better in the morning...'

It was something Anneka's mother might have said. It'll look better in the morning. It was one of those comforting sayings that didn't really _mean_ anything, Anneka thought dizzily, as Darcy helped her manhandle her suitcase down a well-carpeted passage towards her living quarters. She had to give SHIELD credit – they were certainly well-organised. In a vaguely corporate way, almost _sympathetic_. Someone had deposited a research folder, together with a plastic keycard on a string, on her bed in her room. It was a nice gesture, at least. It meant someone had thought things out after - after Pappa.

Darcy stared round at Anneka's room. 'Hey, this is pretty nice! I'm still stuck out at the radio shack in a caravan-' She poked her head through a door into an odd moulded plastic cube. 'Cool, you get an ensuite – _and_ soap! It's like a hotel, you get little bottles-' she caught Anneka's expression, out of the corner of her eye, and stopped. 'Um, I'll go and help Jane...'

She patted the Swedish girl gingerly on one shoulder. 'I hope your dad gets better.'

It was almost worse when she closed the door and went away. Anneka was left alone with herself. And sometimes the mind is the worst company of all.

She hadn't cried in front of Jane and Darcy. But here, with nothing but a muted lamp and anonymous furniture, with everything she owned in one shabby little suitcase?

Anneka began to cry in earnest.


	6. A Svarthofdi

'_The madman often tells the truth._

_The man that walks his own road walks alone._

_The shame you cannot lift away, you had better let lie.'_

** Havamal: The Lay of the High One. Stanza 57**

The hospital facility at Puente Antiguo had scarcely been used since the base unit had been thrown together. S.H.I.E.L.D's New Mexico quarters had been unexpectedly quiet, all things considered – at least since the unfortunate construction of Level 3. Jim Towser had been the solitary occupant until he'd shipped off to 'head office.' Apparently there was a bigger psychiatric facility in Washington. They did things 'better' there, whatever that meant.

And now, Doctor Selvig - the latest victim of Level Three- lay trussed and sedated in his hospital bed, a few soft beeps and whirrs measuring every heartbeat away, wishing he were dead.

He'd failed. He hadn't done anything. If he only had managed to explain enough – tell someone about _Him _before _He _had silenced him!

The thought made Erik groggily try to lift himself again, with arms that felt as though they were made of cotton wool. 'Mmmrff…'

'Uh-Uh. Don't think so, mister.' Kindly, well-meaning hands pushed him back onto the bank of pillows. 'You stay put till the resident psychiatrist gets here, okay? Rest. Whatever it is, it can wait till tomorrow.'

_No it can't_, Erik thought savagely, staring groggily up at the nurse as she checked his pulse. Fiddled with the sedatives running through his system. _It can't wait! _

But - a small but, but a great mercy, nonetheless - at least his thoughts were his own, for now. _He_ hadn't found him yet. But that would only guarantee him a little time, at best. The sorcerous… _thing _was far too good at finding him.

Erik Selvig took a ragged breath, and tried to think for himself again. It was almost unfamiliar, being alone in his head. It was almost…hard. But …

What had old Grandmamma Selvig used to say? His grandmother had been the main source of old tales. Tough as old boots, was old Grandmamma Selvig. She'd seen two world wars come and go before she'd died in 1972 – and gave the distinct impression she'd seen the world twice over before then. She'd believed in the old tales of trolls in the mountains. _Svarthofdi_, too. Magicians never boded well for humans in _her_ stories.

'They steal your soul, sure as eggs is eggs,' she'd said. 'That's what my Mamma told me, Erik. Steal your soul and the thoughts from your head, if you let 'em…'

Selvig bitterly cursed the day he'd come to understand the stories of his childhood were real. The knowledge had come too late to prepare him for anything – and now some parasite from Asgard had crept down and was jeopardising everything he had worked for and cared about.

His work with SHIELD; the safety of his friends – perhaps even the safety of Earth. Selvig understood the significance of the Destroyer's appearance on Earth to SHIELD. He had _approved_ of the idea of some sort of response to the threat. But when even his own mind and resources failed him, Selvig's helpless mind now turned to old stories and fairytales.

Had there been more to his grandmother's tale? An escape? A way to defeat the monster? Erik thought desperately. Try as he might, the memory eluded his grasp the more he snatched at it.

He dimly remembered Dr Foster's concerned face in his blurred recollection of emerging from his prison.

Had Jane even been able to understand? But there had been another face, too – a face that had seemed out of place in the plastic confines of the New Mexico facility. Round-faced, anxious, with hazel eyes wide in horror.

_Anneka_?

Anneka had been there! And, what was more, he could remember her horrified glance at the shadow lurking in the glare of the reflection. She had seen it. So Anneka was here, in New Mexico. And, what was worse, she'd _seen_.

That thought sobered Dr Selvig's blind, helpless panic like nothing else could. He lay still again, with the deathly calm of a man resigned.

Anneka – poor child, he'd have given _anything_ for her not to be mixed up in this business. How on earth had SHIELD found her? But – at least he _wasn't_ mad. He held on to that thought like a drowning man. If he wasn't mad, there would be a solution. There was _always_ a solution.

Was there an answer to fighting off _Him_?

The shadows grew longer as the sun set through the small, high windows of the medical bay.

There wasn't much time. _His_ hour was always between sunrise and sunset, when the shadows grew longer and the windows became dark mirrors – plenty of reflections to hide in, places for a wraith to slip in unobserved.

But the new-found knowledge that he wasn't alone had given Dr Selvig something he needed. The kindly Swedish physicist had found something concrete to stand on in the memory of his daughter's appalled face.

He remained floating on an icy plateau of calm as the evening came in. He even managed to feign a calm sleep as the vague figure of the nurse came fussing comfortingly with the IV drip in his arm again – and then left the steel door of the medical bay swinging back, and forth after her.

_He_ was there.

An intrusive numbness began to steal over Selvig – the cold, sharp sensation of _Him_, testing his grip on his mind. The dark thing that hid in the shadows seemed to like to make sure of him, like a child spitefully twisting the wings off flies. Normally, Selvig would have relapsed in dribbling terror. This was usually only the prelude. The _svarthofdi_, much like a petulant child, liked to test his powers.

But this time – there was something – strange about the magic binding Selvig's senses. It felt… _weaker_, somehow. As though the creature's grip was slipping.

Resistance, that could be the key. Friction. Offer enough resistance to fight the influence. That thought gave Selvig the courage he needed to push himself up on one elbow.

'You won't win, y'know', he said, in a slurred voice. 'Y'can't. Not any more. Can't steal _my _soul_…'_

There was a hiss of indrawn breath from the shadows - as though the _svarthofdi_ had been taken aback that Selvig could still respond.

But not for long. Loki's magic might be wavering, but his wits worked sharpest when he had little else.

'Souls?' the thin, metallic voice in Selvig's head was painfully derisory. 'Who talks of _souls_? You folk of Midgard _have_ no souls. You are a stale breath of Asgard left to fester at will …'

Selvig's hand began groping frantically for the alarm button by his bed.

'Aha? I think _not.'_ The voice was horribly reasonable. 'After all, what good would it do? They won't see _me_. They'll see a madman, frothing at nothing – and then they'll bury you _alive_.'

Selvig's fingers froze, his breath catching in his throat as the _Svarthofdi_ emerged from the shadows.

The… the _thing_ was a mess. Selvig had never seen it before, directly.

It was thin – thin almost to point where the skin stretched to snapping point over the bones, the eyes sunken and glittering feverishly in the sockets. A thin tracery of purple veins showed lurid on the emaciated neck. And he swayed a little as he emerged from the shadows, as though walking upright was an effort.

Mirror magic had not been kind to Loki. He was weakened, he knew it – far too weak to properly _punish _Selvig for his attempts at escape. But he _needed_ this stupid clod to finish his work, and he'd been hiding in the shadows for far too long…

'How imprudent you are to try and escape _me_, thrall!' There was a note of hysteria in his voice that sounded strange, even to him. But never mind that. The feeble Selvig wouldn't notice. 'I am your master, you understand? I _rule_ you. And you will _never _escape. '

Dr Selvig blinked back at him, mouth quivering, before he began to make a strange, choking noise at the back of his throat.

It took Loki a full moment before he realised that the mortal on the bed was actually _laughing_ at him_._

'Own me? Hah!' Selvig managed to sit up, rather shakily, bolt upright in his hospital bed. The hope of fighting back against his tormentor had made the physicist reckless. 'Wh - what d'you _own_? You're a mess like me – _worse_, and you know it. Y -you _need_ me. And I won't – I _won't_ be your puppet any more. I'm **not** afraid of you.'

It was almost worth the certain prospect of death, Selvig thought exhaustedly, to see the outraged look of baffled fury pass over the _svarthofdi'_s face; as though the prospect of resistance was quite incomprehensible.

'Not _afraid _of me?' he said, in a strangled voice half-smothered in rage. 'Not afraid of _me_?! If you are so strong, can you bear _this?!'_

Selvig screwed up his face, expecting pain.

A hoarse scream, shrill as the death-cry of a hare, burst through the medical facility .

Selvig's face cleared, puzzled. That had not been _his_ scream.

Had Loki been in his right mind, he never would have attempted to use magic for something as trivial as the feeble insubordination of a tool such as Dr Selvig. But his pride had been wounded by the little man exposing the weakness of his own position, and in his furious attempt to silence the man with needle-sharp agony, the inevitable happened.

His grasp on the runes _slipped_. And the magic turned _inwards_, sharp as a thrown knife, back towards its maker.

A small, keening whimper came from the _svarthofdi _as Selvig looked on in puzzlement. The Asgardian had collapsed to the floor, folding his arms in on himself, in an effort to contain his pain. Blood was dripping from what– what _had_ been - his hands.

_Gud_, Selvig thought, watching in detached horror. He couldn't feel too much for the thing – after all, the pain had been meant for him – but what it had done to itself…

Loki held up the bleeding remains of his fingers in disbelief. The nails had gone. There was only black blood and glistening, red-raw flesh in their place. The flesh had shrivelled, looking like the hands of an old man…

'W-what have you done to me?' he whispered 'W-what have you…'

He rose with legs trembling, nursing his mutilated hands. 'Y-you will pay!' he hissed through his teeth, trying to focus as the room slid dizzily from side to side. The mortal himself seemed to cartwheel from ceiling to floor again in a blur of silver and white. 'You will pay for this dearly, Selvig!'

Selvig sank back on his pillows. The sedative from the IV drip was finally taking effect – and the prolonged mental efforts of such a battle of wits had left him drained. 'You did it to yourself,' he said, exhaustedly. 'And – and they'll find you, soon enough, y'know.' Whether it was the drugs or the blood marking the floor, Selvig never knew, but he felt a twinge of incautious pity for his tormentor. 'Someone _else _saw…you…too…'

Selvig's eyes had closed irresistibly in opiate-induced sleep. It was as well for his peace that he didn't see the terrible look that spread across the crouching Loki's face.

'We'll _see_ about that…' he muttered, before staggering straight towards a window. A silver flash – and then there was nothing but a dark shadow that crept across the glossy plate-glass observation window on the sick bay and was gone.

Next morning, the duty nurse was surprised to find a trail of blood spattering the tiles in ugly clots – especially as the SHIELD orderlies were amongst the best. Mess like that was pretty out of line. But, looking at Selvig, and remembering the fight he'd put up when he came in, she refrained from comment.

Half an hour later, some strong disinfectant and cleaning fluid had wiped away the only traces of the ghost of Level Three.


End file.
